■V*" 


THE 


WORKS 


CHARLES     LAMB. 


TO   WHICH    ARE    PREFIXED, 


HIS     LETTERS, 


A  SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE 


THOMAS     NOON     TALFOURD, 

ONE  OF  BIS   EXECUTORS. 


IN     TWO      VOLUMES. 

VOL.  II. 


NEW- YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    82    CLIFF-ST. 
1849. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVEBPTTY  NIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


A2 

cr.  Z 


MARTIN  CHARLES  BURNEY,  ESQ. 


Forgive  me,  Burney,  if  to  thee  these  late 

And  hasty  products  of  a  critic  pen, 

Thyself  no  common  judge  of  books  and  men, 

In  feeling  of  thy  worth  I  dedicate. 

My  verse  was  offer'd  to  an  older  friend  ; 

The  humbler  prose  has  fallen  to  thy  share: 

Nor  could  I  miss  the  occasion  to  declare, 

What,  spoken  in  thy  presence,  must  qrlend — 

That,  set  aside  some  few  caprices  wild, 

Those  humorous  clouds  that  flit  o'er  brightest  days, 

In  all  my  threadings  of  this  worldly  maze, 

(And  I  have  watch'd  thee  almost  from  a  child,) 

Fret  from  self-seeking,  envy,  low  design, 

I  have  not  found  a  whiter  soul  than  thine. 


PREFACE. 

BY  A  FRIEND  OF  THE  LATE  ELIA. 


This  poor  gentleman,  who  for  some  months  past  had 
been  in  a  declining  way,  hath  at  length  paid  his  final 
tribute  to  nature. 

To  say  truth,  it  is  time  he  were  gone.  The  humour 
of  the  thing,  if  there  ever  was  much  in  it,  was  pretty 
well  exhausted ;  and  a  two  years'  and  a  half  existence 
has  been  a  tolerable  duration  for  a  phantom. 

I  am  now  at  liberty  to  confess,  that  much  which  I  have 
heard  objected  to  my  late  friend's  writings  was  well 
founded.  Crude  they  are,  I  grant  you — a  sort  of  un- 
licked,  incondite  things — villanously  pranked  in  an  af- 
fected array  of  antique  modes  and  phrases.  They  had 
not  been  his  if  they  had  been  other  than  such ;  and  bet- 
ter it  is  that  a  writer  should  be  natural  in  a  self-pleasing 
quaintness,  than  to  affect  a  naturalness  (so  called)  that 
should  be  strange  to  him.  Egotistical  they  have  been 
pronounced  by  some  who  did  not  know  that  what  he 
tells  us,  as  of  himself,  was  often  true  only  (historically) 
of  another;  as  in  a  former  essay  (to  save  many  instances) 
— where,  under  the  first  person,  (his  favourite  figure,)  he 
shadows  forth  the  forlorn  estate  of  a  country-boy  placed 
at  a  London  school,  far  from  his  friends  and  connexions — 
in  direct  opposition  to  his  own  early  history.  If  it  be 
egotism  to  imply  and  twine  with  his  own  identity  the 
griefs  and  affections  of  another — making  himself  many, 
or  reducing  many  unto  himself — then  is  the  skilful  nov- 
elist, who  all  along  brings  in  his  hero  or  heroine,  speak- 
ing of  themselves,  the  greatest  egotist  of  all ;  who  yet  has 
never,  therefore,  been  accused  of  that  narrowness.  And 
how  shall  the  intenser  dramatist  escape  being  faulty,  who 
doubtless,  under  cover  of  passion  uttered  by  another, 
oftentimes  gives  blameless  vent  to  his  most  inward  feel- 
ings, and  expresses  his  own  story  modestly  ? 

My  late  friend  was  in  many  respects  a  singular  char- 


VI  PREFACE. 

acter.  Those  who  did  not  like  him,  hated  him  ;  and 
some,  who  once  liked  him,  afterward  became  his  bitterest 
haters.  The  truth  is,  he  gave  himself  too  little  concern 
what  he  uttered,  and  in  whose  presence.  He  observed 
neither  time  nor  place,  and  would  e'en  out  with  what 
came  uppermost.  With  the  severe  religionist  he  would 
pass  for  a  free-thinker ;  while  the  other  faction  set  him 
down  for  a  bigot,  or  persuaded  themselves  that  he  belied 
his  sentiments.  Few  understood  him  ;  and  I  am  not  cer- 
tain that  at  all  times  he  quite  understood  himself.  He 
too  much  affected  that  dangerous  figure — irony.  He 
sowed  doubtful  speeches,  and  reaped  plain,  unequivocal 
hatred.  He  would  interrupt  the  gravest  discussion  with 
some  light  jest ;  and  yet,  perhaps,  not  quite  irrelevant,  in 
ears  that  could  understand  it.  Your  long  and  much  talk- 
ers hated  him.  The  informal  habit  of  his  mind,  joined 
to  an  inveterate  impediment  of  speech,  forbade  him  to  be 
an  orator ;  and  he  seemed  determined  that  no  one  else 
should  play  that  part  when  he  was  present.  He  was 
petit  and  ordinary  in  his  person  and  appearance.  I  have 
seen  him  sometimes  in  what  is  called  good  company,  but 
where  he  has  been  a  stranger,  sit  silent,  and  be  suspected 
for  an  odd  fellow ;  till  some  unlucky  occasion  provoking 
it,  he  would  stutter  out  some  senseless  pun,  (not  altogether 
senseless,  perhaps,  if  rightly  taken,)  which  has  stamped 
his  character  for  the  evening.  It  was  hit  or  miss  with 
him  ;  but,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  he  contrived  by  this  de- 
vice to  send  away  a  whole  company  his  enemies.  His 
conceptions  rose  kindlier  than  his  utterance,  and  his  hap- 
piest impromptus  had  the  appearance  of  effort.  He  has 
been  accused  of  trying  to  be  witty,  when  in  truth  he  was 
but  struggling  to  give  his  poor  thoughts  articulation.  He 
chose  his  companions  for  some  individuality  of  character 
which  they  manifested.  Hence,  not  many  persons  of  sci- 
ence, and  few  professed  literati,  were  of  his  councils. 
They  were,  for  the  most  part,  persons  of  an  uncertain 
fortune  ;  and  as  to  such  people  commonly  nothing  is  more 
obnoxious  than  a  gentleman  of  settled  (though  moderate) 
income,  he  passed  with  most  of  them  for  a  great  miser. 
To  my  knowledge  tins  was  a  mistake.  His  inlniiados, 
to  confess  a  truth,  were,  in  the  world's  eye,  a  ragged  regi- 
ment. He  found  them  floating  on  the  surface  of  society, 
and  the  colour,  or  something  else,  in  the  weed  pleased 


PREFACE.  Vll 

him.  The  burrs  stuck  to  him — but  they  were  good  and 
loving  burrs,  for  all  that.  He  never  greatly  cared  for  the 
society  of  what  are  called  good  people.  If  any  of  these 
were  scandalized,  (and  offences  were  sure  to  arise,)  he 
could  not  help  it.  When  he  has  been  remonstrated  with 
for  not  making  more  concessions  to  the  feelings  of  good 
people,  he  would  retort  by  asking,  what  one  point  did 
these  good  people  ever  concede  to  him  ?  He  was  tern 
perate  in  his  meals  and  diversions,  but  always  kept  a  lit- 
tle on  this  side  of  abstemiousness.  Only  in  the  use  of 
the  Indian  weed  he  might  be  thought  a  little  excessive. 
He  took  it,  he  would  say,  as  a  solvent  of  speech.  Marry 
— as  the  friendly  vapour  ascended,  how  his  prattle  would 
curl  up  sometimes  writh  it !  the  ligaments  which  tongue 
tied  him  were  loosened,  and  the  stammerer  proceeded  a 
statist ! 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  ought  to  bemoan  or  rejoice 
that  my  old  friend  is  departed.  His  jests  were  beginning 
to  grow  obsolete,  and  his  stories  to  be  found  out.  He 
felt  the  approaches  of  age ;  and  while  he  pretended  to 
cling  to  life,  you  saw  how  slender  were  the  ties  left  to 
bind  him.  Discoursing  with  him  latterly  on  this  subject, 
he  expressed  himself  with  a  pettishness  which  I  thought 
unworthy  of  him.  In  our  walks  about  his  suburban  re- 
treat (as  he  called  it)  at  Shacklewell,  some  children  be- 
longing to  a  school  of  industry  had  met  us,  and  bowed 
and  courtesied,  as  he  thought,  in  an  especial  manner  to 
him.  "  They  take  me  for  a  visiting  governor,"  he  mut- 
tered, earnestly.  He  had  a  horror,  which  he  carried  to  a 
foible,  of  looking  like  anything  important  and  parochial. 
He  thought  that  he  approached  nearer  to  that  stamp  daily. 
He  had  a  general  aversion  from  being  treated  like  a  grave 
or  respectable  character,  and  kept  a  wary  eye  upon  the 
advances  of  age  that  should  so  entitle  him.  He  herded 
always,  while  it  was  possible,  with  people  younger  than 
himself.  He  did  not  conform  to  the  march  of  time,  but 
was  dragged  along  in  the  procession.  His  manners  lagged 
behind  his  years.  He  was  too  much  of  the  boy-man. 
The  toga  virilis  never  sat  gracefully  on  his  shoulders. 
The  impressions  of  infancy  had  burnt  into  him,  and  he 
resented  the  impertinence  of  manhood.  These  were 
weaknesses ;  but,  such  as  they  were,  they  are  a  key  to 
explicate  some  of  his  writings. 


CONTENTS 

OP 

THE    SECOND    VOLUME. 


FAQS 

Preface 5 

The  South  Sea  House 13 

Oxford  in  the  Vacation 19 

Christ's  Hospital  five-and-thirty  Years  ago 24 

The  Two  Races  of  Men 35 

Newyear's  Eve 40 

Mrs .  "Battle's  Opinions  on  Whist 46 

A  Chapter  on  Ears 51 

All  Fools'  Day 56 

-A  Quaker  Meeting 59 

The  Old  and  the  New  Schoolmaster 63 

Valentine's  Day 70 

'Imperfect  Sympathies 73 

-Witches,  and  other  Night  Fears 80 

My  Relations 85 

Mackery  Knd,  in  Hertfordshire 91 

Modern  Gallantry 95 

The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple 98 

Grace  before  Meat 108 

My  First  Flay 114 

Dream  Children ;  a  Revery 113 

Distant  Correspondents 121 

The  Praise  of  Chimney-sweepers 126 

A  Complaint  of  the  Decay  of  Beggars  in  the  Metropolis     .        .        .  132 

-A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig 138 

A  Bachelor's  Complaint  of  the  Behaviour  of  Married  People      .        .  145 

On  some  of  the  Old  Actors 151 

On  the  Artificial  Comedy  of  the  last  Century 160 

On  the  Acting  of  Munden 167 

Blakesmoor  in  H shire 169 

Poor  Relations 173 

Stage  Illusion 179 

To  the  Shade  of  Elliston 182 

Ellistoniana 184 

Detached  Thoughts  on  Books  and  Reading 189 

The  Old  Margate  Hoy 194 

The  Convalescent 201 

Sanity  of  True  Genius 204 

Captain  Jackson 207 

—The  Superannuated  Man 211 

The  Genteel  Style  in  Writing 217 

-Barbaras 221 

The  Tombs  in  the  Abbey 225 

Amicus  Redivivus 228 

Some.  Sonnets  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney 232 

Newspapers  thirty-five  V'ears  a?o         .......  238 

Barrenness  of  the  Imaginative  Faculty  in  the  Productions  of  Modem 

Art 245 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Rejoicings  upon  the  New  Year's  coming  of  Age         ....  254 

The  Wedding 259 

The  Child  Angel 263 

Old  China 266 

Confessions  of  a  Drunkard    .        . 271 

Popular  Fallacies — 

I.  That  a  Bully  is  a  Coward 278 

II.  That  ill-gotten  Gain  never  prospers 279 

III.  That  a  Man  must  not  laugh  at  his  own  Jest       ....  279 

IV.  That  such  a  one  shows  his  Breeding. — That  it  is  easy  to  per- 

ceive he  is  no  Gentleman 280 

V.  That  the  Poor  copy  the  Vices  of  the  Rich          ....  281 

VI.  That  Enough  is  as  good  as  a  Feast 282 

VII.  Of  two  Disputants,  the  warmest  is  generally  in  the  wrong        .  283 
VIII.  That  Verbal  Allusions  are  not  Wit,  because  they  will  not  bear 

Translation 284 

IX.  That  the  worst  Puns  are  the  best       .        .        .  '      .        ,        .  285 

X.  That  Handsome  is  that  Handsome  does 287 

XI.  That  we  should  not  look  a  Gift  Horse  in  the  Mouth          .        .  289 

XII.  That  Home  is  Home,  though  it  is  never  so  homely    .        .        .  291 

XIII.  That  you  must  love  me,  and  love  my  Dog          ....  294 

XIV.  That  we  should  rise  with  the  Lark 297 

XV.  That  we  should  lie  down  with  the  Lamb 300 

XVI.  That  a  Sulky  Temper  is  a  Misfortune 301 

Rosamund  Gray 305 

Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital 337 

ESSAYS. 

On  the  Tragedies  of  Shakspeare 349 

Characters  of  Dramatic  Writers  contemporary  with  Shakspeare         .  365 

Specimens  from  the  Writings  of  Fuller 381 

On  the  Genius  and  Character  of  Hogarth 388 

On  the  Poetical  Works  of  George  Wither 405 

LETTERS 

Under  assumed  Signatures. 

The  Londoner 41 1 

On  Burial  Societies,  &c 413 

On  the  Danger  of  confounding  Moral  with  Personal  Deformity  .        .  418 

On  the  Inconveniences  resulting  from  being  Hanged    ....  423 

On  the  Melancholy  of  Tailors 431 

Hospita  on  the  immoderate  Indulgence  of  the  Pleasures  of  the  Palate  435 

Edax  on  Appetite 438 

Curious  Fragments 445 

Mr.  H ,  a  Farce,  in  Two  Acts 451 


THE 


ESSAYS    OF     ELI  A. 


THE  SOUTH -SEA  HOUSE. 

Reader,  in  thy  passage  from  the  bank — where  thou  hast 
been  receiving  thy  half-yearly  dividends  (supposing  thou  art 
a  lean  annuitant  like  myself) — to  the  Flower  Pot,  to  secure  a 
place  for  Dalston,or  Shacklewell,  or  some  other  thy  suburban 
retreat  northerly — didst  thou  never  observe  a  melancholy- 
looking,  handsome  brick  and  stone  edifice  to  the  left — where 
Threadneedle-street  abuts  upon  Bishopsgate  ?  I  dare  say  thou 
hast  often  admired  its  magnificent  portals  ever  gaping  wide, 
and  disclosing  to  view  a  grave  court,  with  cloisters  and  pil- 
lars, with  few  or  no  traces  of  goers-in  or  comers-out — a  des- 
olation something  like  Balclutha's.* 

This  was  once  a  house  of  trade — a  centre  of  busy  inter- 
ests. The  throng  of  merchants  was  here — the  quick  pulse 
of  gain — and  here  some  forms  of  business  are  still  kept  up, 
though  the  soul  be  long  since  fled.  Here  are  still  to  be  seen 
stately  porticoes  ;  imposing  staircases  ;  offices  roomy  as  the 
state  apartments  in  palaces — deserted  or  thinly  peopled  with 
a  few  straggling  clerks  ;  the  still  more  sacred  interiors  of 
court  and  committee  rooms,  with  venerable  faces  of  beadles, 
doorkeepers — directors  seated  in  form  on  solemn  days  (to 
proclaim  a  dead  dividend)  at  long  wormeaten  tables,  that 
have  been  mahogany,  with  tarnished  gilt-leather  coverings, 
supporting  massy  silver  inkstands  long  since  dry  ;  the  oaken 
wainscots  hung  with  pictures  of  deceased  governors  and  sub- 
governors,  of  Queen  Anne,  and  the  first  two  monarchs  of  the 
Brunswick  dynasty  ;  huge  charts,  which  subsequent  discov- 
eries have  antiquated  ;  dusty  maps  of  Mexico,  dim  as  dreams 
— and  soundings  of  the  Bay  of  Panama  !  The  long  passages 
hung  with  buckets,  appended,  in  idle  row,  to  walls   whose 

*  I  passed  by  the  walls  of  Baiciutha,  and  they  were  desolate,— Ossux 


14  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

substance  might  defy  any,  short  of  the  last  conflagration  ;  with 
vast  ranges  of  cellarage  under  all,  where  dollars  and  pieces 
of  eight  once  lay  an  "  unsunned  heap,"  for  Mammon  to  have 
solaced  his  solitary  heart  withal — long  since  dissipated,  or 
scattered  into  air  at  the  blast  of  the  breaking  of  that  famous 
Bubble. 

Such  is  the  South-Sea  House — at  least,  such  it  was  forty 
years  ago,  when  I  knew  it — a  magnificent  relic  !  What  al- 
terations have  been  made  in  it  since,  I  have  had  no  oppor- 
tunities of  verifying.  Time,  I  take  for  granted,  has  not  fresh- 
ened it.  No  wind  has  resuscitated  the  face  of  the  sleeping 
waters.  A  thicker  crust  by  this  time  stagnates  upon  it.  The 
moths,  that  were  then  battening  upon  its  obsolete  legers  and 
daybooks,  have  rested  from  their  depredations,  but  other  light 
generations  have  succeeded,  making  fine  fretwork  among 
their  single  and  double  entries.  Layers  of  dust  have  accu- 
mulated (a  superfetation  of  dirt !)  upon  the  old  layers,  that 
seldom  used  to  be  disturbed,  save  by  some  curious  finger  now 
and  then,  inquisitive  to  explore  the  mode  of  bookkeeping  in 
Queen  Anne's  reign  ;  or,  with  less  hallowed  curiosity,  seeking 
to  unveil  some  of  the  mysteries  of  that  tremendous  hoax, 
whose  extent  the  petty  peculators  of  our  day  look  back  upon 
with  the  same  expression  of  incredulous  admiration,  and  hope- 
less ambition  of  rivalry,  as  would  become  the  puny  face  of 
modern  conspiracy  contemplating  the  Titan  size  of  Vaux's 
superhuman  plot. 

Peace  to  the  manes  of  the  Bubble  !  Silence  and  desti- 
tution are  upon  thy  walls,  proud  house,  for  a  memorial. 

Situated  as  thou  art,  in  the  very  heart  of  stirring  and  living 
Tommerce — amid  the  fret  and  fever  of  speculation  ;  with  the 
Dank,  and  the  'Change,  and  the  India  House  about  thee,  in  the 
heyday  of  present  prosperity,  with  their  important  faces,  as 
it  were,  insulting  thee,  their  poor  neighbour  out  of  business — 
to  the  idle  and  merely  contemplative — to  such  as  me,  old 
house  !  there  is  a  charm  in  thy  quiet  ;  a  cessation — a  cool- 
ness from  business — an  indolence  almost  cloistral — which  is 
delightful !  With  what  reverence  have  I  paced  thy  great 
bare  rooms  and  courts  at  eventide  !  They  spoke  of  the  past  : 
the  shade  of  some  dead  accountant,  with  visionary  pen  in  ear, 
would  flit  by  me,  stiff"  as  in  life.  Living  accounts  and  ac- 
countants puzzle  me.  I  have  no  skill  in  figuring.  But  thy 
great  dead  tonics,  which  scarce  three  degenerate  clerks  of  the 
present  day  could  lift  from  their  enshrining  shelves — with 
their  old  fantastic  flourishes  and  decorative  rubric  interlaeings 
— their  sums  in  triple  columniations,  set  down  with  formal 
^upulluity  oi'  ciphers — with  pious  ywHcncua  jtf  the  beginning, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  15 

without  which  our  religious  ancestors  never  ventured  to  open 
a  book  of  business,  or  bill  of  lading — the  costly  vellum  covers 
of  some  of  ihem  almost  persuading  us  that  we  are  got  into 
some  better  library — are  very  agreeable  and  edifying  specta- 
cles. I  can  look  upon  these  defunct  dragons  with  compla- 
cency. Thy  heavy,  odd-shaped,  ivory-handled  penknives  (our 
ancestors  had  everything  on  a  larger  scale  than  we  have 
hearts  for)  are  as  good  as  anything  from  Herculaneum.  The 
pounce  boxes  of  our  days  have  gone  retrograde. 

The  very  clerks  which  I  remember  in  the  South-Sea  House 
— I  speak  of  forty  years  back — had  an  air  very  different  from 
those  in  the  public  offices  that  I  have  had  to  do  with  since. 
They  partook  of  the  genius  of  the  place  ! 

They  were  mostly  (for  the  establishment  did  not  admit  of 
superfluous  salaries)  bachelors.  Generally  (for  they  had  not 
much  to  do)  persons  of  a  curious  and  speculative  turn  of  mind. 
Oldfashioned,  for  a  reason  mentioned  before.  Humorists, 
for  they  were  of  all  descriptions  ;  and,  not  having  been  brought 
together  in  early  life,  (which  has  a  tendency  to  assimilate  the 
members  of  corporate  bodies  to  each  other,)  but,  lor  the  most 
part,  placed  in  this  house  in  ripe  or  middle  age,  they  neces- 
sarily carried  into  it  their  separate  habits  and  oddities,  unqual- 
ified, if  I  may  so  speak,  as  into  a  common  stock.  Hence  they 
formed  a  sort  of  Noah's  ark.  Odd  fishes.  A  lay  monastery. 
Domestic  retainers  in  a  great  house,  kept  more  for  show  than 
use.  Yet  pleasant  fellows,  full  of  chat — and  not  a  few  among 
them  had  arrived  at  considerable  proficiency  on  the  German 
flute. 

The  cashier  at  that  time  was  one  Evans,  a  Cambro-Briton. 
He  had  something  of  the  choleric  complexion  of  his  country- 
men stamped  on  his  visage,  but  was  a  worthy  sensible  man  at 
bottom.  He  wore  his  hair,  to  the  last,  powdered  and  frizzed 
out,  in  the  fashion  which  I  remember  to  have  seen  in  carica- 
tures of  what  were  termed,  in  my  young  days,  Macaronics. 
He  was  the  last  of  that  race  of  beaux.  Melancholy  as  a  gib- 
cat  over  his  counter  all  the  forenoon,  I  think  I  see  him  making 
up  his  cash  (as  they  call  it)  with  tremulous  fingers,  as  if  hu 
feared  every  one  about  him  was  a  defaulter  ;  in  his  hypo- 
chondria ready  to  imagine  himself  one  ;  haunted,  at  least,  with 
the  idea  of  the  possibility  of  his  becoming  one  :  his  tristful 
visage  clearing  up  a  little  over  his  roast  neck  of  veal  at  Au- 
derton's  at  two,  (where  his  picture  still  hangs,  taken  a  little 
before  his  death  by  desire  of  the  master  of  the  coffee-house 
which  he  had  frequented  for  the  last,  five-and-twenty  years,] 
but  not  attaining  the  meridian  of  its  animation  till  evening 
brought  on  the  hour  of  tea  and  visiting.     The  simultamou 


16  ESSAYS    OF    ELLA. 

sound  of  his  well-known  rap  at  the  door  with  the  stroke  of 
the  clock  announcing  six,  was  a  token  of  never-failing  mirth 
in  the  families  which  this  dear  old  bachelor  gladdened  with 
his  presence.  Then  was  his  forte,  his  glorified  hour  !  How 
would  he  chirp  and  expand  over  a  muffin  !  How  would  he 
dilate  into  secret  history  !  His  countrymen,  Pennant  himself, 
in  particular,  could  not  be  more  eloquent  than  he  in  relation 
to  old  and  new  London — the  sites  of  old  theatres,  churches, 
streets  gone  to  decay — where  Rosamond's  pond  stood — the 
mulberry  gardens — and  the  Conduit  in  Cheap — with  many  a 
pleasant  anecdote,  derived  from  paternal  tradition,  of  those 
grotesque  figures  which  Hogarth  has  immortalized  in  his  pic- 
ture of  Noon — the  worthy  descendants  of  those  heroic  con- 
fessors, who,  flying  to  this  country  from  the  wrath  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth  and  his  dragoons,  kept  alive  the  flame  of  pure 
religion  in  the  sheltering  obscurities  of  Hog  Lane,  and  the  vi- 
cinity of  the  Seven  Dials  ! 

Deputy,  under  Evans,  was  Thomas  Tame.  He  had  the 
air  and  stoop  of  a  nobleman.  You  would  have  taken  him  for 
one,  had  you  met  him  in  one  of  the  passages  leading  to  West- 
minster Hall.  By  stoop,  I  mean  that  gentle  bending  of  the 
body  forward,  which,  in  great  men,  must  be  supposed  to  be 
the  effect  of  an  habitual  condescending  attention  to  the  appli- 
cations of  their  inferiors.  While  he  held  you  in  converse, 
you  felt  strained  to  the  height  in  the  colloquy.  The  confer- 
ence over,  you  were  at  leisure  to  smile  at  the  comparative 
insignificance  of  the  pretensions  which  had  just  awed  you. 
His  intellect  was  of  the  shallowest  order.  It  did  not  reach 
to  a  saw  or  a  proverb.  His  mind  was  in  its  original  state  of 
white  paper.  A  suckling  babe  might  have  posed  him.  What 
was  it  then  ?  Was  he  rich  1  Alas,  no  !  Thomas  Tame  was 
very  poor.  Both  he  and  his  wife  looked  outwardly  gentle- 
folks, when  I  fear  all  was  not  well  at  all  times  within.  She 
had  a  neat  meager  person,  which  it  was  evident  she  had  not 
sinned  in  over  pampering  ;  but  in  its  veins  was  noble  blood. 
She  traced  her  descent  by  some  labyrinth  of  relationship, 
which  I  never  thoroughly  understood — much  less  can  explain 
with  any  heraldic  certainty  at  this  time  of  day — to  the  illus- 
trious but  unfortunate  house  of  Derwentwater.  This  was 
the  secret  of  Thomas's  stoop.  This  was  the  thought — the 
sentiment — the  bright  solitary  star  of  your  lives — ye  mild  and 
happy*  pair — which  cheered  you  in  the  night  of  intellect,  and 
in  the  obscurity  of  your  station  !  This  was  to  you  instead  of 
riches,  instead  of  rank,  instead  of  glittering  attainments  :  and 
it  was  worth  them  all  together.  You  insulted  none  with  it; 
but,  while  you  wore  it  as  a  piece  of  defensive  armour  only 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  17 

no  insult  likewise  could  reach  you  through  it.     Decus  et  so- 
lamen. 

Of  quite   another   stamp  was   the  then   accountant,  John 
Tipp.     He  neither  pretended  to  high  blood,  nor  in  good  truth 
cared  one  fig  about  the  matter.     He  "  thought  an  accountant 
the  greatest  character  in  the  world,  and  himself  the  greatest 
accountant  in   it."     Yet  John  was   not    without  his  hobby. 
The  fiddle  relieved   his  vacant  hours.     He  sang,  certainly, 
with  other  notes  than  to  the  Orphean  lyre.     He  did,  indeed, 
scream  and  scrape  most  abominably.     His  fine  suit  of  official 
rooms  in  Threadneedle-street,  which,  without  anything  very 
substantial  appended  to  them,  were  enough  to  enlarge  a  man's 
notions  of  himself  that  lived  in  them,  (I  know  not  who  is  the 
occupier  of  them  now,)  resounded  fortnightly  to  the  notes  of 
a  concert  of  "sweet  breasts,"  as  our  ancestors  would  have 
called  them,  culled  from   clubrooms  and  orchestras — chorus 
singers — first  and  second  violoncellos — double  basses — and 
clarionets — who   ate  his   cold  mutton,  and  drank  his  punch, 
and  praised  his  ear.     He  sat  like  Lord  Midas  among  them. 
But  at  the  desk  Tipp  was  quite   another  sort   of  creature 
Thence  all  ideas  that  were  purely  ornamental  were  banished. 
You  could  not  speak  of  anything  romantic  without  rebuke. 
Politics  were  excluded.     A  newspaper  was  thought  too  refined 
and  abstracted.     The  whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in  writing 
off  dividend  warrants.     The  striking  of  the  annual  balance  in 
the  company's  books  (which,  perhaps,  differed  from  the  bal- 
ance of  last  year  in  the  sum  of  251.  Is.  6d.)  occupied  his  davs 
and  nights  for  a  month  previous.     Not  that  Tipp  was  blind  to 
the  deadness  of  tilings  (as  they  call  them  in  the  city)  in  his 
beloved  house,  or  did  not  sigh  for  a  return  of  the  old  stirring 
days  when  South-Sea  hopes   were  young — (he  was  indeed 
equal  to  the  wielding  of  any  the  most  intricate  accounts  of  the 
most  flourishing  company  in  these  or  those  days) — but  to  a 
genuine  accountant  the  difference  of  proceeds  is  as  nothing. 
The  fractional  farthing  is  as  dear  to  his  heart  as  the  thousands 
which  stand  before  it.     He  is  the  true  actor,  who,  whether  his 
part  be  a  prince  or  a  peasant,  must  act  it  with  like  intensity. 
With  Tipp,  form  was  everything.     His  life  was  formal.     His 
actions  seemed  ruled  with  a  ruler.     His  peir  was  not  less 
erring  than  his  heart.     He  made   the  best   executor  in   the 
world  :  he  was  plagued  with  incessant  executorships  accord- 
ingly, which  excited  his   spleen   and  soothed  his  vanity   in 
equal  ratios.      He  would  swear  (for  Tipp  swore)   at  the  little 
orphans,  whose  rights   he  would   guard  with   a   tenacity  like 
the  grasp  of  the  dying  hand    that  commended   their   interests 
to  his  protection.     AVith  all  this  there  was  about  him  a  sort 
2* 


18  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

of  timidity — (his  few  enemies  use  to  give  it  a  worse  name) — 
a  something  which,  in  reverence  to  the  dead,  we  will  place, 
if  you  please,  a  little  on  this  side  of  the  heroic.  Nature  cer- 
tainly had  been  pleased  to  endow  John  Tipp  with  a  sufficient 
measure  of  the  principle  of  self-preservation.  There  is  a 
cowardice  which  we  do  not  despise,  because  it  has  nothing 
base  or  treacherous  in  its  elements  ;  it  betrays  itself,  not  you  : 
it  is  mere  temperament  ;  the  absence  of  the  romantic  and  the 
enterprising ;  it  sees  a  lion  in  the  way,  and  will  not,  with 
Fortinbras,  "  greatly  find  quarrel  in  a  straw,"  when  some  sup- 
posed honour  is  at  stake.  Tipp  never  mounted  the  box  of  a 
stage  coach  in  his  life  ;  or  leaned  against  the  rails  of  a  bal- 
cony ;  or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a  parapet  ;  or  looked 
down  a  precipice  ;  or  let  off  a  gun  ;  or  went  upon  a  water 
party ;  or  would  willingly  let  you  go  if  he  could  have  helped 
it :  neither  was  it  recorded  of  him,  that  for  lucre,  or  for  intim- 
idation, he  ever  forsook  friend  or  principle. 

Whom  next  shall  we  summon  from  the  dusty  dead,  in  whom 
common  qualities  become  uncommon  ?  Can  I  forget  thee, 
Henry  Man,  the  wit,  the  polished  man  of  letters,  the  author, 
of  the  South-Sea  House  ?  who  never  enteredst  thy  office  in  a 
morning,  or  quhtedst  it  in  midday,  (what  didst  thou  in  an 
office  ?)  without  some  quirk  that  left  a  sting  !  Thy  gibes 
and  thy  jokes  are  now  extinct,  or  survive  but  in  two  forgotten 
volumes,  which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  rescue  from  a  stall 
in  Barbican,  not  three  days  ago,  and  found  thee  terse,  fresh, 
epigrammatic,  as  alive.  Thy  wit  is  a  little  gone  by  in  these 
fastidious  days  —  thy  topics  are  staled  by  the  "newborn 
gauds"  of  the  time  :  but  great  thou  used  to  be  in  Public 
Legers,  and  in  chronicles,  upon  Chatham, and  Shelburne,  and 
Rockingham,  and  Howe,  and  Burgoyne,and  Clinton,  and  the 
war  which  ended  in  tearing  from  Great  Britain  her  rebellious 
colonies — and  Keppel,  and  Wilkes,  and  Sawbridge,  and  Bull, 
and  Dunning,  and  Pratt,  and  Richmond — and  such  small 
politics. 

A  little  less  facetious,  and  a  great  deal  more  obstreperous, 
was  fine,  rattling,  rattle-headed  Plumer.  He  was  descended 
— not  in  a  right  line,  reader,  (for  his  lineal  pretensions,  like 
his  personal,  favoured  a  little  of  the  sinister  bend,)  from  the 
Plumers  of  Hertfordshire.  So  tradition  gave  him  out ;  and 
certain  family  features  not  a  little  sanctioned  the  opinion. 
Certainly  old  Walter  Plumer  (his  reputed  author)  had  been  a 
rake  in  his  days,  and  visited  much  in  Italy,  and  had  seen  the 
world.  He  was  uncle,  bachelor  uncle,  to  the  fine  old  whig 
still  living,  who  has  represented  the  county  in  so  many  suc- 
cessive parliaments,  and  has  a  fine  old  mansion  near  Ware 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  19 

Walter  flourished  in  George  the  Second's  days,  and  was  the 
same  who  was  summoned  before  the  house  of  commons 
about  a  business  of  franks,  with  the  old  Duchess  of  Marlbo- 
rough. You  may  read  of  it  in  Johnson's  life  of  Cave.  Cave 
came  off  cleverly  in  tbat  business.  It  is  certain  our  Plumer 
did  nothing  to  discountenance  the  rumour.  lie  rather  seemed 
pleased  whenever  it  was,  with  all  gentleness,  insinuated. 
But,  besides  his  family  pretensions,  Plumer  was  an  engaging 
fellow,  and  sang  gloriously. 

Not  so  sweetly  sang  Plumer  as  thou  sangest,  mild,  child- 
like, pastoral  M ;  a  flute's  breathing  less  divinely  whis- 
pering than  thy  Arcadian  melodies,  when,  in  tones  worthy 
of  Arden,  thou  didst  chant  that  song  sung  by  Amiens  to  the 
banished  duke,  which  proclaims  the  winter  wind  more  len- 
ient than  for  a  man  to  be  ungrateful.  Thy  sire  was  old 
surly  M ,  the  unapproachable  churchwarden  of  Bishops- 
gate.  He  knew  not  what  he  did  when  he  begat  thee,  like 
spring,  gentle  offspring  of  blustering  winter — only  unfortu- 
nate in  thy  ending,  which  should  have  been  mild,  conciliatory, 
swanlike. 

Much  remains  to  sing.  Many  fantastic  shapes  rise  up,  but 
they  must  be  mine  in  private  :  already  I  have  fooled  the 
reader  to  the  top  of  his  bent — else  could  I  omit  that  strange 
creature  Woollet,  who  existed  in  trying  the  question,  and  bought 
litigations? — and  still  stranger,  inimitable,  solemn  Hepworth, 
from  whose  gravity  Newton  might  have  deduced  the  law  o« 
gravitation.  How  profoundly  would  he  nib  a  pen — with  wha 
deliberation  would  he  wet  a  wafer  ! 

But  it  is  time  to  close — night's  wheels  are  rattling  fas 
over  me — it  is  proper  to  have  done  with  this  solemn  mockery 

Reader,  what  if  I  have  been  playing  with  thee  all  this  while 
— peradventure  the  very  names  which  I  have  summoned  up 
before  thee  are  fantastic — unsubstantial — like  Henry  Pim- 
pernel  and  old  John  Naps  of  Greece. 

Be  satisfied  that  something  answering  to  them  has  had  a 
being.     Their  importance  is  from  the  past. 


OXFORD  IN  THE  VACATION. 

Casting  a  preparatory  glance  at  the  bottom  of  this  article 
— as  the  wary  connoisseur  in  prints,  with  cursory  eye,  (which, 
while  it  reads,  seems  as  though  it  read  not,)  never  fails  to 


20  ESSAYS    OP   ELIA. 

consult  the  quis  sculpsit  in  the  corner,  before  he  pronounces 
some  rare  piece  to  be  a  Vivares,  or  a  Woollet — methinks  I 
hear  you  exclaim,  reader,  Who  is  Elia  ? 

Because  in  my  last  I  tried  to  divert  thee  with  some  half-for- 
gotten humours  of  some  old  clerks  defunct,  in  an  old  house 
of  business,  long  since  gone  to  decay,  doubtless  you  have  al- 
ready set  me  down  in  your  mind  as  one  of  the  selfsame  col- 
lege— a  votary  of  the  desk — a  notched  and  cropped  scrivener 
— one  that  sucks  his  sustenance,  as  certain  sick  people  are 
said  to  do,  through  a  quill. 

Well,  I  do  agnize  something  of  this  sort.  I  confess  that  it 
is  my  humour — my  fancy  in  the  fore  part  of  the  day,  when 
the  mind  of  your  man  of  letters  requires  some  relaxation — 
(and  none  better  than  such  as  at  first  sight  seems  most  abhor- 
rent from  his  beloved  studies) — to  while  away  some  good 
hours  of  my  time  in  the  contemplation  of  indigoes,  cottons, 
raw  silks,  piece  goods,  flowered  or  otherwise.  In  the  first 
place  *  *  *  and  then  it  sends  you  home  with  such  in- 
creased appetite  to  your  books  *  *  *  not  to  say  that 
your  outside  sheets,  and  waste  wrappers  of  foolscap,  do  re- 
ceive into  them,  most  kindly  and  naturally,  the  impression  of 
sonnets,  epigrams,  essays — so  that  the  very  parings  of  a 
counting  house  are,  in  some  sort,  the  settings  up  of  an  author. 
The  enfranchised  quill,  that  has  plodded  all  the  morning  among 
the  cart-rucks  of  figures  and  ciphers,  frisks  and  curvets  so  at 
its  ease  over  the  flowery  carpet  ground  of  a  midnight  disser- 
tation. It  feels  its  promotion.  *  *  *  So  that  you  see, 
upon  the  whole,  the  literary  dignity  of  Elia  is  very  little,  if 
at  all,  compromised  in  the  condescension. 

Not  that,  in  my  anxious  detail  of  the  many  commodities  in- 
cidental to  the  life  of  a  public  office,  I  would  be  thought  blind 
to  certain  flaws,  which  a  cunning  carper  might  be  able  to  pick 
in  this  Joseph's  vest.  And  here  I  must  have  leave,  in  the  ful- 
ness of  my  soul,  to  regret  the  abolition,  and  doing  away  with 
altogether,  of  those  consolatory  interstices,  and  sprinklings  of 
freedom,  through  the  four  seasons — the  red-letter  days,  now 
become,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  dead-letter  days.  There 
was  Paul,  and  Stephen,  and  Barnabas — 

"  Andrew  and  John,  men  famous  in  old  times" — 

we  were  used  to  keep  all  their  days  holy,  as  long  back  as  1 
was  at  school  at  Christ's.  I  remember  their  effigies,  by  the 
same  token,  in  the  old  basket  Prayer  Book.  There  hung  Peter 
in  bis  uneasy  posture  ;  holy  Bartlemy  in  the  troublesome  act 
of  flaying,  after  the  famous  Marsyas  by  Spagnolette.  I  hon- 
oured them  all,  and  could  almost  have  wept  the  defalcation  of 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  21 

Iscariot,  so  much  did  we  love  to  keep  holy  memories  sacred  ; 
only  methought  I  a  little  grudged  at  the  coalition  of  the  better 
Jude  with  Simon,  dubbing  (as  it  were)  their  sanctities  tog 
to  make  up  one  poor  gaudy-day  between  them,  as  an  economy 
unworthy  of  the  dispensation. 

These  were  bright  visitations  in  a  scholar's  and  a  clerk's 
life,  "  far  off  their  coming  shone."  I  was  as  good  as  an  alma- 
nac in  those  days.  I  could  have  told  you  such  a  saint's  day 
falls  out  next  week,  or  the  week  after.  Peradventure  the 
Epiphany,  by  some  periodical  infelicity,  would,  once  in  six 
years,  merge  in  a  Sabbath.  Now  am  I  little  better  than  one 
of  the  profane.  Let  me  not  be  thought  to  arraign  the  wisdom 
of  my  civil  superiors,  who  have  judged  the  further  observation 
of  these  holy  tides  to  be  Papistical,  superstitious.  Ordy  in  a 
custom  of  such  long  standing,  methinks,  if  their  holinesses 
the  bishops  had,  in  decency,  been  first  sounded — but  I  am 
wading  out  of  my  depths.  I  am  not  the  man  to  decide  the 
limits  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority — I  am  plain  Elia — 
no  Selden,  nor  Archbishop  Usher,  though  at  present  in  the 
thick  of  their  books,  here  in  the  heart  of  learning,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  mighty  Bodley. 

I  can  here  play  the  gentleman,  enact  the  student.  To  such 
a  one  as  myself,  who  has  been  defrauded  in  his  young  years 
of  the  sweet  food  of  academic  institution,  nowhere  is  so  pleas- 
ant, to  while  away  a  few  idle  weeks  at,  as  one  or  other  of  the 
universities.  Their  vacation,  too,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  falls 
in  so  pat  with  ours.  Here  I  can  take  my  walks  unmolested, 
and  fancy  myself  of  what  degree  or  standing  I  please.  I  seem 
admitted  ad  eundum.  I  fetch  up  past  opportunities.  I  can 
rise  at  the  chapel  bell,  and  dream  that  it  rings  for  me.  In 
moods  of  humility,  I  can  be  a  sizer  or  a  servitor.  When  the 
peacock  vein  rises,  I  strut  a  gentleman  commoner.  In  graver 
moments,  I  proceed  master  of  arts.  Indeed,  I  do  not  think  I 
am  much  unlike  that  respectable  character.  I  have  seen  your 
dim-eyed  vergers,  and  bedmakers  in  spectacles,  drop  a  bow 
or  courtesy  as  I  pass,  widely  mistaking  me  for  something  of  the 
sort.  I  go  about  in  black,  which  favours  the  notion.  Onlv 
in  Christ  Church  reverend  quadrangle,  I  can  be  content  to 
pass  for  nothing  short  of  a  seraphic  doctor. 

The  walks  at  these  times  are  so  much  one's  own — the  tall 
trees  of  Christ's,  the  groves  of  Magdalen  !  The  halls  de- 
serted, and  with  open  doors  inviting  one  to  slip  in  unperceived, 
and  pay  a  devoir  to  some  founder,  or  noble  or  royal  beriefa'c- 
tress  (that  should  have  been  ours)  whose  portrait  seems  to 
smile  upon  their  overlooked  beadsman,  and  to  adopt  me  for 
their  own.     Then,  to  take  a  peep  in,  by-the-way,  at  the  bui- 


22  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

teries  and  sculleries,  redolent  of  antique  hospitality  :  the  im- 
mense caves  of  kitchens,  kitchen  fireplaces,  cordial  recesses; 
ovens  whose  first  pies  were  baked  four  centuries  ago  ;  and 
spits  which  have  cooked  for  Chaucer!  Not  the  meanest 
minister  among  the  dishes  but  is  hallowed  to  me  through  his 
imagination,  and  the  cook  goes  forth  a  manciple. 

Antiquity  !  thou  wondrous  charm,  what  art  thou?  that,  be- 
ing nothing,  art  everything  !  When  thou  loert,  thou  wert  not 
antiquity — then  thou  wert  nothing,  but  hadst  a  remoter  anti- 
quity, as  thou  calledst  it,  to  look  back  to  with  blind  venera- 
tion ;  thou  thyself  being  to  thyself  flat,  jejune,  modern  !  What 
mystery  lurks  in  this  retroversion  ?  or  what  half  Januses*  are 
we,  that  cannot  look  forward  with  the  same  idolatry  with 
which  we  for  ever  revert !  The  mighty  future  is  as  nothing, 
being  everything  !  the  past  is  everything,  being  nothing ! 

What  were  thy  dark  ages  1  Surely  the  sun  rose  as  brightly 
then  as  now,  and  man  got  him  to  his  work  in  the  morning. 
Why  is  it  that  we  can  never  hear  mention  of  them  without  an 
accompanying  feeling,  as  though  a  palpable  obscure  had 
dimmed  the  face  of  things,  and  that  our  ancestors  wandered 
to  and  fro  groping  ! 

Above  all  thy  rarities,  old  Oxenford,  what  do  most  arride 
and  solace  me,  are  thy  repositories  of  mouldering  learning, 
thy  shelves — 

What  a  place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library  !  It  seems  as  though 
all  the  souls  of  all  the  writers,  that  have  bequeathed  their  la- 
bours to  these  Bodleians,  were  reposing  here,  as  in  some  dor- 
mitory or  middle  state.  I  do  not  want  to  handle,  to  profane 
the  leaves — their  winding  sheets.  I  could  as  soon  dislodge  a 
shade.  I  seem  to  inhale  learning,  walking  amid  their  foliage  ; 
and  the  odour  of  their  old  moth-scented  coverings  is  fragrant 
as  the  first  bloom  of  those  sciential  apples  which  grew  amid 
\he  happy  orchard. 

Still  less  have  I  curiosity  to  disturb  the  elder  repose  of  MSS. 
Those  varies  lectiones,  so  tempting  to  the  more  erudite  palates, 
do  but  disturb  and  unsettle  my  faith.  I  am  no  Herculanean 
raker.  The  credit  of  the  three  witnesses  might  have  slept 
unimpeached  for  me.  I  leave  these  curiosities  to  Porson  and 
to  G.  D. — whom,  by-the-way,  I  found  busy  as  a  moth  over 
some  rotten  archive,  rummaged  out  of  some  seldom-explored 
press,  in  a  nook  at  Oriel.  With  long  poring,  he  is  grown  al- 
most into  a  book.  He  stood  as  passive  as  one  by  the  side  of 
the  old  shelves.  I  longed  to  new-coat  him  in  Russia,  and 
assign  him  his  place.  He  might  have  mustered  for  a  tall 
Scapula. 

*  Januses  of  one  face. — Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


ESSAYS    OF    EL1A.  23 

T).  is  assiduous  in  his  visits  to  these  seats  of  learning.  No 
inconsiderable  portion  of  his  moderate  fortune,  I  apprehend,  is 
consumed  in  journeys  between  them  and  Clifford's  Inn,  where, 
like  a  dove  on  the  asp's  oest,  lit-  lias  long  taken  up  his  uncon- 
scious abode,  amid  an  incongruous  assembly  of  attorneys,  attor- 
neys' clerks,  apparitors,  promoters,  vermin  of  the  law,  among 
whom  he  sits  "  in  calm  and  sinless  peace."  The  fangs  of  the 
law  pierce  him  not — the  winds  of  litigation  blow  over  his  hum- 
ble chambers — the  hard  sheriff's  officer  moves  his  hat  as  he 
passes — legal  nor  illegal  discourtesy  touches  him — none  thinks 
of  offering  violence  or  injustice  to  him — you  would  as  soon 
"  strike  an  abstract  idea." 

D.  has  been  engaged,  he  tells  me,  through  a  course  of  la- 
borious years,  in  an  investigation  into  all  curious  matter  con- 
nected with  the  two  universities  ;  and  has  lately  lighted  upon  a 

manuscript  collection  of  charters,  relative  to  C ,  by  which 

he  hopes  to  settle  some  disputed  points — particularly  that  long 
controversy  between  them  as  to  priority  of  foundation.  The 
ardour  with  which  he  engages  in  these  liberal  pursuits,  I  am 
afraid,  has  not  met  with  all  the  encouragement  it  deserved, 
either  here  or  at  C .  Your  caputs,  and  heads  of  col- 
leges, care  less  than  anybody  else  about  these  questions. 
Contented  to  suck  the  milky  fountains  of  their  alma  maters, 
without  inquiring  into  the  venerable  gentlewomen's  years,  they 
rather  hold  such  curiosities  to  be  impertinent — unreverend. 
They  have  their  good  glebe  lands  in  manu,  and  care  not  much 
to  rake  into  the  title  deeds.  I  gather  at  least  so  much  from 
other  sources,  for  D.  is  not  a  man  to  complain. 

D.  started  like  an  unbroke  heifer,  when  I  interrupted  him. 
A  priori,  it  was  not  very  probable  that  we  should  have  met  in 
Oriel.  But  D.  would  have  done  the  same  had  I  accosted  him 
on  the  sudden  in  his  own  walks  in  Clifford's  Inn,  or  in  the 
Temple.  In  addition  to  a  provoking  short-sightedness,  (the 
effect  of  late  studies  and  watchings  at  the  midnight  oil.)  D.  is 
the  most  absent  of  men.  He  made  a  call  the  other  morning 
at  our  friend  3f.'s  in  Bedford  Square  ;  and,  finding  nobody  at 
home,  was  ushered  into  the  hall,  where,  asking  for  pen  and 
ink,  with  gTeat  exactitude  of  purpose  he  enters  me  his  name 
in  the  book — which  ordinarily  lies  about  in  such  places,  to 
record  the  failures  of  the  untimely  or  unfortunate  visiter — and 
takes  his  leave  with  many  ceremonies  and  professions  of  re- 
gret. Some  two  or  three  hours  after,  his  walking  destinies 
returned  him  into  the  same  neighbourhood  again,  and  again 
the  quiet  image  of  the  fireside  circle  at  #f/s —  .Mrs.  M.  pre- 
siding at  it  like  a  Queen  Lar,  with  pretty  A.  S.  at  her  side  — 
striking  irresistibly  on  his  fancy,  he  makes  another  call,  (for- 


•24  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

getting  that  they  were  "  certainly  not  to  return  from  *\e  coun- 
try before  that  day  week,")  and,  disappointed  a  second  time, 
inquires  for  pen  and  paper  as  before  :  again  the  book  is 
brought,  and  in  the  line  just  above  that  in  which  he  is  about 
to  print  his  second  name,  (his  rescript,)  his  first  name  (scarce 
dry)  looks  out  upon  him  like  another  Sosia,  or  as  if  a  man 
should  suddenly  encounter  his  own  duplicate  !  The  effect 
may  be  conceived — D.  made  many  a  good  resolution  against 
such  lapses  in  future.  I  hope  he  will  not  keep  them  too  rig- 
orously. 

For  with  G.  D.  to  be  absent  from  the  body,  is  sometimes 
(not  to  speak  it  profanely)  to  be  present  with  the  Lord.  At 
the  very  time  when,  personally  encountering  thee,  he  passes 
on  with  no  recognition  ;  or,  being  stopped,  starts  like  a  thing 
surprised  :  at  that  moment,  reader,  he  is  on  Mount  Tabor,  or 
Parnassus  ;  or  co-sphered  with  Plato :  or,  with  Harrington, 
framing  "  immortal  commonwealths  ;"  devising  some  plan  of 
amelioration  to  thy  country,  or  thy  species  ;  peradventure 
meditating  some  individual  kindness  or  courtesy,  to  be  done  to 
thee  thyself,  the  returning  consciousness  of  which  made  him 
to  start  so  guiltily  at  thy  obtruded  personal  presence. 

D.  is  delightful  anywhere,  but  he  is  at  the  best  in  such 
places  as  these.  He  cares  not  much  for  Bath.  He  is  out  of 
his  element  at  Buxton,  at  Scarborough,  or  Harrowgate.  The 
Cam  and  the  Isis  are  to  him  "  better  than  all  the  waters  of 
Damascus."  On  the  muses'  hill  he  is  happy,  and  good,  as 
one  of  the  shepherds  on  the  Delectable  Mountains  ;  and 
when  he  goes  about  with  you  to  show  you  the  halls  and  col- 
leges, you  think  you  have  with  you  the  Interpreter  at  the 
House  Beautiful. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY    YEARS    AGO. 


In  Mr.  Lamb's  "  Works,"  published  a  year  or  two  since,  I 
find  a  magnificent  eulogy  on  my  old  school,*  such  as  it  was, 
or  now  appears  to  him  to  have  been,  between  the  years  1782 
and  1789.  It  happens,  very  oddly,  that  my  own  standing  at 
Christ's  was   nearly   corresponding  with  his  ;  and,  with   all 

*  Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  2.3 

gratitude  to  him  for  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cloisters,  I  think 
he  has  contrived  to  bring  together  whatever  can  be  said  in 
praise  of  them,  dropping  all  the  other  side  of  the  argument 
most  ingeniously. 

I  remember  L.  at  school ;  and  can  well  recollect  that  he 
had  some  peculiar  advantages,  which  I  and  others  of  his 
schoolfellows  had  not.  His  friends  lived  in  town,  and  were 
near  at  hand  ;  and  ho  had  the  privilege  of  going  to  see  tin  in, 
almost  as  often  as  he  wished,  through  some  invidious  dis- 
tinction, which  was  denied  to  us.  The  present  worthy  sub- 
treasurer  to  the  Inner  Temple  can  explain  how  that  happened, 
lie  had  his  tea  and  hot  rolls  in  a  morning,  while  we  were 
battening  upon  our  quarter  of  a  penny  loaf — our  crug — mois- 
tened with  attenuated  small  beer,  in  wooden  piggins,  smack- 
ing of  the  pitched  leathern  jack  it  was  poured  from.  Our 
Monday's  milk  porridge,  blue  and  tasteless,  and  the  pease 
soup  of  Saturday,  coarse  and  choking,  were  enriched  for  him 
with  a  slice  of  "  extraordinary  bread  and  butter,"  from  the 
hot  loaf  of  the  Temple.  The  Wednesday's  mess  of  millet, 
somewhat  less  repugnant,  (we  had  three  banyan  to  four 
meat  days  in  the  week,)  was  endeared  to  his  palate  with  a 
lump  of  double  refined,  and  a  smack  of  ginger  (to  make  it  go 
down  the  more  glibly)  or  the  fragrant  cinnamon.  In  lieu  of 
our  half-picklcd  Sundays,  or  quite  fresh  boiled  beef  on  Thurs- 
days, (strong  as  caro  equina,)  with  detestable  marigolds  float- 
ing in  the  pail  to  poison  the  broth — our  scanty  mutton  crags  on 
Fridays — and  rather  more  savoury,  but  grudging,  portions  of 
the  same  flesh,  rotten-roasted  or  rare,  on  the  Tuesdays — (the 
oidy  dish  which  excited  our  appetites,  and  disappointed  our 
stomachs,  in  almost  equal  proportion) — he  had  his  hot  plate 
of  roast  veal,  or  the  more  tempting  griskin  (exotics  unknown 
to  our  palates)  cooked  in  the  paternal  kitchen,  (a  great  thing,) 
and  brought  him  daily  by  his  maid  or  aunt  !  1  remember  the 
good  old  relative  (in  whom  love  forbade  pride)  squatting  down 
upon  some  odd  stone  in  a  by-nook  of  the  cloisters,  disclosing 
the  viands,  (of  higher  regale  than  those  cates  which  the  ra- 
vens ministered  to  the  Tishbite,)  and  the  contending  passions 
of  L.  at  the  unfolding.  There  was  love  for  the  bringer  ; 
shame  for  the  thing  brought  and  the  manner  of  its  bringing  ; 
sympathy  for  those  who  were  too  many  to  share  in  it  ;  and,  at 
top  of  all,  hunger  (eldest,  strongest  of  the  passions  !)  predom- 
inant, breaking  down  the  stony  fences  of  shame,  and  awk- 
wardness, and  a  troubling  over-consciousness. 

I  was  a  poor  friendless  boy.  My  parents,  and  those  who 
should  care  for  me,  were  far  away.  Those  few  acquaintances 
of  theirs,  which  they  could  reckon  upon  being  kind  to  me  in 
3  B 


26  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  great  city,  after  a  little  forced  notice,  which  they  had  the 
grace  to  take  of  me  on  my  first  arrival  in  town,  soon  grew 
tired  of  my  holyday  visits.  They  seemed  to  them  to  recur 
too  often,  though  I  thought  them  few  enough  ;  and,  one  after 
another,  they  all  failed  me,  and  I  felt  myself  alone  among  six 
hundred  playmates. 

Oh  the  cruelty  of  separating  a  poor  lad  from  his  early  home- 
stead !  The  yearning's  which  I  used  to  have  towards  it  in 
those  unfledged  years  !  How  in  my  dreams  would  my  native 
town  (far  in  the  west)  come  back,  with  its  church,  and  trees, 
and  fac.es  !  How  I  would  wake  weeping,  and  in  the  anguish 
of  my  heart  exclaim  upon  sweet  Calne  in  Wiltshire  ! 

To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,  I  trace  impressions  left  by  the 
recollection  of  those  friendless  holy  days.  The  long  warm 
days  of  summer  never  return  but  they  bring  with  them  a  gloom 
from  the  haunting  memory  of  those  whole  day  leaves  when,  by 
some  strange  arrangement,  we  were  turned  out,  for  the  live- 
long day,  upon  our  ov/n  hands,  whether  we  had  friends  to  go 
to,  or  none.  I  remember  those  bathing  excursions  to  the 
New  River,  which  L.  recalls  with  such  relish,  better,  I  think, 
than  he  can — for  he  was  a  home-seeking  lad,  and  did  not 
much  care  for  such  water  pastimes  :  how  merrily  we  would 
sally  forth  into  the  fields  ;  and  strip  under  the  first  warmth  of 
the  sun  ;  and  wanton  like  young  dace  in  the  streams  ;  getting 
us  appetites  for  noon,  which  those  of  us  that  were  penniless 
(our  scanty  morning  crust  long  since  exhausted)  had  not  the 
means  of  allaying — while  the  cattle,  and  the  birds,  and  the 
fishes  were  at  feed  about  us,  and  we  had  nothing  to  satisfy 
our  cravings  ;  the  very  beauty  of  the  day,  and  the  exercise 
of  the  pastime,  and  the  sense  of  liberty,  setting  a  keener  edge 
upon  them  !  How  faint  and  languid,  finally,  we  would  return, 
towards  nightfall,  to  our  desired  morsel,  half  rejoicing,  half 
reluctant,  that  the  hours  of  our  uneasy  liberty  had  expired  ! 

It  was  worse  in  the  days  of  winter,  to  go  prowling  about 
the  streets  objectless — slavering  at  cold  windows  of  print 
shops,  to  extract  a  little  amusement ;  or  haply,  as  a  last  resort, 
in  the  hope  of  a  little  novelty,  to  pay  a  fifty  times  repeated  visit 
(where  our  individual  faces  should  be  as  well  known  to  the 
warden  as  those  of  his  own  charges)  to  the  lions  in  the 
Tower — to  whose  levee,  by  courtesy  immemorial,  we  had  a 
prescriptive  title  to  admission. 

L.'s  governor  (so  we  called  the  patron  who  presented  us  to 
the  foundation)  lived  in  a  manner  under  his  paternal  roof. 
Any  complaint  which  he  had  to  make  was  sure  of  being  at- 
tended to.  This  was  understood  at  Christ's,  and  was  an 
effectual  screen  to  him  against  the  severity  of  masters,  or 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  27 

worse  tyranny  of  the  monitors.  The  oppressions  of  these 
young  brutes  are  heart  sickening  to  call  to  recollection.  I 
have,  been  called  out  of  inv  bed,  ami  waked  for  the -purpose,  in 
thfl  coldest  winter  nights — and  tins  not  once,  but  night  after 
iii^lit — in  my  shirt,  to  receive  the  discipline  of  a  leathern  thong*, 
with  eleven  other  sufferers,  because  it  pleased  my  callow 
overseer,  when  there  has  been  any  talking  heard  after  we 
were  gone  to  bed,  to  make  the  six  last  beds  in  the  dormitory, 
where  the  youngest  children  of  us  slept,  answerable  for  an 
offence  they  neither  dared  to  commit,  nor  had  the  power  to 
hinder.  The  same  execrable  tyranny  drove  the  younger  part 
of  us  from  the  fires,  when  our  feet  were  perishing  with  snow  ; 
and,  under  the  crudest  penalties,  forbade  the  indulgence  of 
a  drink  of  water,  when  we  lay  in  sleepless  summer  nights, 
fevered  with  the  season   and  the  day's  sports. 

There  was  one  H ,  who,  I  learned  in  after  days,  was 

seen  expiating  some  maturer  offence  in  the  hulks.  (Do  I 
flatter  myself  in  fancying  that  this  might  be  the  planter  of  that 
name,  who  suffered — at  Nevis,  I  think,  or  St.  Kitts — some 
few  years  since?  My  friend  Tobin  was  the  benevolent  in- 
strument of  bringing  him  to  the  gallows.)  This  petty  Nero 
actually  branded  a  boy  who  had  offended  him,  with  a  red-hot 
iron  ;  and  nearly  starved  forty  of  us,  with  exacting  contribu- 
tions, to  the  one  half  of  our  bread,  to  pamper  a  young  ass, 
which,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  with  the  connivance  of  the 
nurse's  daughter,  (a  young  flame  of  his,)  he  had  contrived  to 
smuggle  in,  and  keep  upon  the  leads  of  the  tmrd,  as  they 
called  our  dormitories.  This  game  went  on  for  better  than  a 
week,  till  the  foolish  beast,  not  able  to  fare  well  but  he  must 
cry  roast  meat — happier  than  Caligula's  minion,  could  he  have 
kept  his  own  counsel — but  foolisher,  alas  !  than  any  of  his 
species  in  the  fables — waxing  fat,  and  kicking,  in  the  fulness 
of  bread,  one  unlucky  minute  would  needs  proclaim  his  good 
fortune  to  the  world  below  ;  and,  laving  out  his  simple  throat, 
blew  such  a  ram's-horn  blast,  as  (toppling  down  the  walls  of 
his  own  Jericho)  set  concealment  any  longer  at  defiance. 
The  client  was  dismissed,  with  certain  attentions,  to  Smith- 
field  ;  but  I  never  understood  that  the  patron  underwent  any 
censure  on  the  occasion.  This  was  in  the  stewardship  of 
L.'s  admired  Perry. 

Under  the  same  facile  administration,  can  L.  have  forgotten 
the  cool  impunity  with  which  the  nurses  used  to  carry  away 
openly,  in  open  platters,  for  their  own  tables,  one  out  of  two  of 
every  hut  joint,  which  the  careful  matron  had  been  seeinu' scru- 
pulously weighed  out  tor  our  dinners  '  These  things  wire  daily 
practised  in  that  magnificent  apartment,  which  L.  (grown  con- 

B  2 


28  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

noisseur  since,  we  presume)  praises  so  highly  for  the  grand 
paintings,  "  by  Verrio,  and  others,"  with  which  it  is  "  hung 
round  and  adorned."  But  the  sight  of  sleek,  well-fed,  blue-coat 
boys  in  pictures  was,  at  that  time,  1  believe,  little  consolatory 
to  him,  or  us,  the  living  ones,  who  saw  the  better  part  of  our 
provisions  carried  away  before  our  faces  by  harpies,  and  our- 
selves reduced  (with  the  Trojan  in  the  hall  of  Dido) 

To  feed  our  mind  with  idle  portraiture. 

L.  has  recorded  the  repugnance  of  the  school  to  gags,  or 
the  fat  of  fresh  beef  boiled  ;  and  sets  it  down  to  some  super- 
stition. But  these  unctuous  morsels  are  never  grateful  to 
young  palates,  (children  are  universally  fat  haters,)  and  in 
strong,  coarse,  boiled  meats,  unsalted,  are  detestable.  A  gag- 
eater  in  our  time  was  equivalent  to  agoule,  and  held  in  equal 
detestation.     suffered  under  the  imputation. 

'Twas  said, 
He  ate  strange  flesh. 

He  was  observed,  after  dinner,  carefully  to  gather  up  the 
remnants  left  at  his  table — (not  many,  nor  very  choice  frag- 
ments, you  may  credit  me) — and  in  an  especial  manner,  these 
disreputable  morsels,  which  he  would  convey  away,  and 
secretly  stow  in  the  settle  that  stood  at  his  bedside.  None 
saw  when  he  ate  them.  It  was  rumoured  that  he  privately 
devoured  them  in  the  night.  He  was  watched,  but  no  traces 
of  such  midnight  practices  were  discoverable.  Some  reported, 
that,  on  leave  days,  he  had  been  seen  to  carry  out  of  the 
bounds  a  large  blue  check  handkerchief,  full  of  something. 
This,  then,  must  be  the  accursed  thing.  Conjecture  next  was 
at  work  to  imagine  how  he  could  dispose  of  it.  Some  said 
he  sold  it  to  the  beggars.  This  belief  generally  prevailed. 
He  went  about  moping.  None  spake  to  him.  No  one  would 
play  with  him.  He  was  excommunicated  ;  put  out  of  the 
pale  of  the  school.  He  was  too  powerful  a  boy  to  be  beaten, 
but  he  underwent  every  mode  of  that  negative  punishment, 
which  is  more  grievous  than  many  stripes.  Still  he  perse- 
vered. At  length  he  was  observed  by  two  of  his  schoolfel- 
lows, who  were  determined  to  get  at  the  secret,  and  had 
traced  him  one  leave  day,  for  that  purpose,  to  enter  a  large 
worn-out  building,  such  as  there  exist  specimens  of  in  Chan- 
cery Lane,  which  are  let  out  to  various  scales  of  pauperism, 
with  open  door  and  a  common  staircase.  After  him  they 
silently  slunk  in,  and  followed  by  stealth  up  four  flights,  and 
saw  him  tap  at  a  poor  wicket,  which  was  opened  by  an  aged 
woman,  meanly  clad.     Suspicion  was  now  ripened  into  cer- 


ASSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  29 

tainty.  The  informers  had  secured  iheir  victim.  They  bad 
him  iu  their  toils:  Accusation  was  formally  preferred,  and 
retribution  most  signal  was  looked  for.     Mr.  Hathaway,  the 

then  steward,  (lor  this  happened  a  little  after  mv  time;)  with 
that  patient  sagacity  which  tempered  all  his  conduct,  deter- 
mined to  investigate  the  matter  before  he  proceeded  to  sen- 
tence, The  result  was,  that  the  supposed  mendicants,  the 
receivers  or  purchasers  of  the  mysterious  scraps,  turned  out 

to  be  the  parents  of ,  an  honest  couple  cone  to  decay, 

whom  this  seasonable  supply  had,  in  all  probability,  saved 
from  mendicancy  ;  and  that  this  young  stork,  at  the  expense 
of  his  own  good  name,  had  all  this  while  been  only  feeding 
the  old  birds  !  The  governors  on  this  occasion,  much  to  their 
honour,  voted  a  present  relief  to  the  family  of ,  and  pre- 
sented him  with  a  silver  medal.  The  lesson  which  the 
steward  read  upon  rash  judgment,  on  the  occasion  of  pub- 
licly delivering  the  medal  to ,  I  believe,  would  not  be  lost 

upon  his  auditory.  I  had  left  school  then,  but  I  well  remem- 
ber   .     He  was  a  tall,  shambling  youth,  with  a  cast  in 

his  eye,  not  at  all  calculated  to  conciliate  hostile  prejudices. 
I  have  since  seen  him  carrying  a  baker's  basket.  I  think  I 
heard  he  did  not  do  quite  so  well  by  himself  as  he  had  done 
by  the  old  folks. 

I  was  a  hypochondriac  lad  ;  and  the  sight  of  a  boy  in  fet- 
ters, upon  the  day  of  my  first  putting  on  the  blue  clothes,  was 
not  exactly  fitted  to  assuage  the  natural  terrors  of  initiation. 
I  was  of  tender  years,  barely  turned  of  seven  ;  and  had  onlv 
read  of  such  things  in  books,  or  seen  them  but  in  dreams.  I 
was  told  he  had  run  away.  This  was  the  punishment  for 
the  first  offence.  As  a  novice,  1  was  soon  after  taken  to 
see  the  dungeons.  These  were  little,  square.  Bedlam  cells, 
where  a  boy  could  just  lie  at  his  length  upon  straw  and  a 
blanket — a  mattress,  1  think,  was  afterward  substituted,  with 
a  peep  of  light,  let  m  askance,  from  a  prison  orifice  at  top, 
barely  enough  to  read  by.  Here  the  poor  boy  was  locked  in 
by  himself  all  day,  without  sight  of  any  but  the  porter  who 
brought  him  his  bread  and  water — who  might  not  speak  to 
him ;  or  of  the  beadle,  who  came  twice  a  week  to  call  him 
out  to  receive  his  periodical  chastisement,  which  was  almost 
welcome,  because  it  separated  him  for  a  brief  interval  from 
solitude  :  and  here  he  was  shut  up  by  himself  of  nights,  out 
of  the  reach  of  any  sound,  to  sutler  whatever  horrors  the  weak 
nerves  and  superstition  incident  to  his  time  of  life  might  sub- 
ject him  to.*     This  was  the  penalty  for  the  second  offence. 

*  Ono  or  two  instances  of  lunacy,  or  attempted  suicide,  according!},  at 
length  convinced  the  governors  ot  the  impolicy  ol  this  part  of  the  sentence, 
3* 


80  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

Wouldst  thou  like,  reader,  to  see  what  became  of  him  in  the 
next  degree  ? 

The  culprit,  who  had  been  a  third  time  an  offender,  and 
whose  expulsion  was  at  this  time  deemed  irreversible,  was 
brought  forth,  as  at  some  solemn  auto  da  fe,  arrayed  in  un- 
couth and  most  appalling  attire — all  trace  of  his  late  "  watchet 
weeds"  carefully  effaced,  he  was  exposed  in  a  jacket,  resem- 
bling those  which  London  lamplighters  formerly  delighted  in, 
with  a  cap  of  the  same.  The  effect  of  this  divestiture  was 
such  as  the  ingenious  devisers  of  it  could  have  anticipated. 
With  his  pale  and  frighted  features,  it  was  as  if  some  of  those 
disfigurements  in  Dante  had  seized  upon  him.  In  this  dis- 
guisement  he  was  brought  into  the  hall,  (L.\?  favourite  state- 
room,) where  awaited  him  the  whole  number  of  his  school- 
fellows, whose  joint  lessons  and  sports  he  was  thenceforth  to 
share  no  more  ;  the  awful  presence  of  the  steward,  to  be  seen 
for  the  last  time  ;  of  the  executioner  beadle,  clad  in  his  state 
robe  for  the  occasion  ;  and  of  two  faces  more,  of  direr  import, 
because  never  but  in  these  extremities  visible.  These  were 
governors  ;  two  of  whom,  by  choice  or  charter,  were  always 
accustomed  to  officiate  at  these  Ultima  Supplicia ;  not  to  miti- 
gate, (so  at  least  we  understood  it,)  but  to  enforce  the  utter- 
most stripe.  Old  Bamber  Gascoigne  and  Peter  Aubert,  I 
remember,  were  colleagues  on  one  occasion,  when  the  beadle 
turning  rather  pale,  a  glass  of  brandy  was  ordered  to  prepare 
him  for  the  mysteries.  The  scourging  was,  after  the  old 
Roman  fashion,  long  and  stately.  The  lictor  accompanied 
the  criminal  quite  round  the  hall.  We  were  generally  too 
faint  with  attending  to  the  previous  disgusting  circumstances, 
to  make  accurate  report  with  our  eyes  of  the  degree  of  cor- 
poreal suffering  inflicted.  Report,  of  course,  gave  out  the  back 
knotty  and  livid.  After  scourging,  he  was  made  over,  in  his 
San  Benito,  to  his  friends,  if  he  had  any,  (but  commonly  such 
poor  runagates  were  friendless,)  or  to  his  parish  officer,  who, 
to  enhance  the  effect  of  the  scene,  had  his  station  allotted  to 
him  on  the  outside  of  the  hall  gate. 

These  solemn  pageantries  were  not  played  off  so  often  as 
to  spoil  the  general  mirth  of  the  comnnmitv.  We  had  plenty 
of  exercise  and  recreation  after  school  hours  ;  and,  for  myself, 
I  must  confess  that  I  was  never  happier  than  in  them.  The 
upper  and  the  lower  grammar  schools  were  held  in  the  same 
room,  and  an  imaginary  line  only  divided  their  bounds.    Their 

nnil  the  midnight  torture  to  the  spirits  was  dispensed  with.  This  fancy  of 
dungeons  for  children  was  a  sprout  of  Howaid's  brain;  for  which,  (saving 
the  reverence  due  to  Holy  Paul,)  methinks  I  could  willingly  spit  upon  his 
statue. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  31 

character  was  as  different  as  that  of  the  inhabitants  on  the 
two  sides  of  the  Pyrenees.  The  Rev.  James  Buyer  wis 
the  upper  master;  but  the  Rev.  Matthew  Field  presided  over 
that  portion  of  the  apartment  of  which  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  he  ,i  member.  We  lived  a  life  as  careless  as  birds.  We, 
talked  and  did  just  as  we  pleased,  and  nobody  molested  08. 
We  earned  an  accidence,  or  a  grammar,  for  form  ;  but,  for 
any  trouble  it  gave  us,  we  might  take  two  years  in  getting 
through  the  verbs  deponent,  and  another  two  in  forgetting  all 
that  we  had  learned  about  them.  There  was  now  and  then 
the  formality  of  saying  a  lesson,  but  if  you  had  not  learned 
it,  a  brush  across  the  shoulders  (just  enough  to  disturb  a  ilv) 
was  the  sole  remonstrance.  Field  never  used  the  rod  ;  and, 
in  truth, he  wielded  the  cane  with  no  great  goodwill — holding 
it  "like  a  dancer."  It  looked  in  his  hands  rather  like  an  em- 
blem than  an  instrument  of  authority  ;  and  an  emblem,  too, 
he  was  ashamed  of.  He  was  a  good  easy  man,  that  did  not 
care  to  ruffle  his  own  peace,  nor  perhaps  set  any  great  con- 
sideration upon  the  value  of  juvenile  time.  He  came  among 
us,  now  and  then,  but  often  staid  away  whole  days  from  us  ; 
and  when  he  came,  it  made  no  difference  to  us — he  had  his 
private  room  to  retire  to,  the  short  time  he  staid,  to  be  out  of 
the  sound  of  our  noise.  Our  mirth  and  uproar  went  on.  We 
had  classics  of  our  own,  without  being  beholden  to  "  insolent 
Greece  or  haughty  Rome,"  that  passed  current  among  us — 
Peter  Wilkins  ;  the  Adventures  of  the  Honourable  Captain 
Robert  Boyle  ;  the  fortunate  Blue-Coat  Boy  ;  and  the  like.  Or 
we  cultivated  a  turn  for  mechanic  or  scientific  operations  ;  ma- 
king little  sun  dials  of  paper  ;  or  weaving  those  ingenious 
parentheses  called  cat  cradles ;  or  making  dry  peas  to  dance 
upon  the  end  of  a  tin  pipe  ;  or  studying  the  art  military  over 
that  laudible  game  "  French  and  English,"  and  a  hundred 
other  such  devices  to  pass  away  the  time — mixing  the  useful 
with  the  agreeable — as  would  have  made  the  souls  of  Rous- 
seau and  John  Locke  chuckle  to  see  us. 

Matthew  Field  belonged  to  that  class  of  modest  divines  who 
affect  to  mix  in  equal  proportion  the  gentleman,  the  scholar, 
and  the  Christian  ;  but,  I  know  not  how,  the  first  ingredient 
is  generally  found  to  be  the  predominating  dose  in  the  compo- 
sition. He  was  engaged  in  gay  parties,  or  with  his  courtlv 
bow  at  some  episcopal  levee,  when  he  should  have  been  at- 
tending upon  us.  He  had  for  many  years  the  classical  charge 
of  a  hundred  children,  during  the  four  or  five  first  years  of 
their  education;  and  his  very  highest  form  seldom  proceeded 
further  than  two  or  three  of  the  introductory  fables  of  Phae- 
drus.     How  things  were   Buffered   to  go  on  thus,  I  cannot 


32  ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A. 

guess.  Boyer,  who  was  tlie  proper  person  to  Lave  remedied 
these  abuses,  always  affected,  perhaps  felt,  a  delicacy  in  in- 
terfering in  a  province  not  strictly  his  own.  I  have  not  been 
without  my  suspicions,  that  he  was  not  altogether  displeased 
at  the  contrast  we  presented  to  his  end  of  the  school.  We 
were  a  sort  of  Helots  to  his  young  Spartans.  He  would 
sometimes,  with  ironic  deference,  send  to  borrow  a  rod  of  the 
under  master,  and  then,  with  sardonic  grin,  observe  to  one  of 
his  upper  boys,  "  how  neat  and  fresh  the  twigs  looked." 
While  his  pale  students  were  battering  their  brains  over  Xen- 
ophon  and  Plato,  with  a  silence  as  deep  as  that  enjoined  by 
the  Samite,  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  at  our  ease  in  our 
little  Goshen.  We  saw  a  little  into  the  secrets  of  his  disci- 
pline, and  the  prospect  did  but  the  more  reconcile  us  to  our 
lot.  His  thunders  rolled  innocuous  for  us  ;  his  storms  came 
near,  but.  never  touched  us  ;  contrary  to  Gideon's  miracle, 
while  all  around  were  drenched,  our  fleece  was  dry.*  His 
boys  turned  out  the  better  scholars  ;  we,  I  suspect,  have  the 
advantage  in  temper.  His  pupils  cannot  speak  of  him  with- 
out something  of  terror  allaying  their  gratitude  ;  the  remem- 
brance of  Field  comes  back  with  all  the  soothing  images  of 
indolence,  and  summer  slumbers,  and  work  like  play,  and  in- 
nocent idleness,  and  Elysian  exemptions,  and  life  itself  "  a 
playing  holyday." 

Though  sufficiently  removed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  Boyer, 
we  were  near  enough  (as  I  have  said)  to  understand  a  little 
of  his  system.  We  occasionally  heard  sounds  of  the  Ulular.- 
tcs,  and  caught  glances  of  Tartarus.  B.  was  a  rabid  pedant. 
His  English  style  was  cramped  to  barbarism.  His  Easter 
anthems  (for  his  duty  obliged  him  to  those  periodical  flights) 
were  grating  as  scrannel  pipes. \  He  would  laugh,  ay,  and 
heartily,  but  then  it  must  be  at  Flaccus's  quibble  about  Rex — 
or  at  the  tristis  scveritas  in  vultu,  or  inspicere  in  patinas,  of 
Terence — thin  jests,  which  at  their  first  broaching  could 
hardly  have  had  vis  enough  to  move  a  Roman  muscle.  He 
had  two  wigs,  both  pedantic,  but  of  different  omen.  The  one 
serene,  smiling,  fresh  powdered,  betokening  a  mild  day.  The 
other,  an  old,  discoloured,  unkempt,  angry  caxon,  denoting 
frequent  and  bloody  execution.     Wo  to  the   school  when  he 

*    Cowley. 

t  In  this  and  everything  B.  was  the  antipodes  of  his  coadjutor.  While  the 
former  was  digging  his  brains  for  crude  anthems,  worth  a  pignut.  F.  would  be 
recreating  his  gentlemanly  fancy  in  the  more  flowery  walks  ol  the  muses.  A 
little  dramatic  effusion  of  his,  under  the  name  of  Veituminis  and  Pomona,  is 
not  yet  forgotten  by  the  chroniclers  of  that  sort  ol  literature.  It  was  accepted 
by  Garrick,  but  the  town  did  not  give  it  their  sanction.  B.  used  to  say  of  it,  in 
a  way  of  half  compliment,  half  irony,  that  it  was  too  classical  for  representation. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  33 

mule  his  morning  appearance  in  his  passy,  or  passional t  icig. 
No  comet  expounded  surer.  J.  B.  Had  a  heavy  hand.  I  have 
known  him  double  his  knotty  fist  at  a  poor  trembling  chili!, 
(the  maternal  milk  hardly  dry  upon  its  lips,)  with  a  '•  Sirrah, 
do  von  presume  to  set  your  wits  at  me  ?"  Nothing  was  more 
common  than  to  see  him  make  a  headlong  entry  into  the 
schoolroom,  from  his  inner  recess,  or  library,  and,  with  tur- 
hulenteye,  singling  out  a  lad,  roar  out,  "  Odd's  my  life,  sirrah," 
(his  favourite  adjuration,)  "  I  have  a  great  mind  to  whip  vou" 
— then,  with  as  sudden  a  retracting  impulse,  fling  back  into 
his  lair — and,  after  a  cooling  lapse  of  some  minutes,  (during 
which  all  hut  the  culprit  had  totally  forgotten  the  context.) 
drive  headlong  out  again,  piecing  out  his  imperfect  sense,  as 
if  it  had  been  some  devil's  litany,  with  the  expletory  yell — 
"and  I  will,  too."  In  his  gentler  moods,  when  the  ralidus 
furor  was  assuaged,  he  had  resort  to  an  ingenious  method, 
peculiar,  for  what  I  have  heard,  to  himself,  of  whipping  the 
boy  and  reading  the  Debates  at  the  same  time  ;  a  paragraph, 
and  a  lash  between  ;  which  in  those  times,  when  parliamen- 
tary oratory  was  most  at  a  height  and  flourishing  in  these 
realms,  was  not  calculated  to  impress  the  patient  with  a  ven- 
eration for  the  diffuser  graces  of  rhetoric. 

Once,  and  but  once,  the  uplifted  rod  was  known  to  fall  in- 
effectual from  his  hand — when  droll  squinting  W ,  having 

been  caught  putting  the  inside  of  the  master's  desk  to  a  use 
for  which  the  architect  had  clearly  not  designed  it,  to  justify 
himself,  with  great  simplicity  averred,  that  he  did  not  knoio 
that  the  thing  had  been  forewarned.  This  exquisite  Precogni- 
tion of  any  law  antecedent  to  the  oral  or  declaratory,  struck 
so  irresistibly  upon  the  fancy  of  all  who  heard  it,  (the  peda- 
gogue himself  not  excepted,)  that  remission  was  unavoidable. 

L.  has  given  credit  to  B.'s  great  merits  as  an  instructer. 
Coleridge,  in  his  literary  life,  has  pronounced  a  more  intelli- 
gible and  ample  encomium  on  them.  The  author  of  the 
Country  Spectator  doubts  not  to  compare  him  with  the  ablest 
teachers  of  antiquity.      Perhaps  we  cannot  dismiss  him  better 

than  with  the  pious  ejaculation  of  C ,  when  he  heard  that 

his  old  master  was  on  his  deathbed — "  Poor  J.  B. !  may  all 
his  faults  be  forgiven  ;  and  may  he  be  wafted  to  bliss  by  little 
cherub  bovs,  all  head  and  wings,  witli  no  bottoms  to  reproach 
his  sublunary  infirmities." 

Under  him  were  many  good  and  sound  scholars  bred. 
First  Grecian  of  my  time  was  Lancelot  Pepys  Stevens,  kind- 
est of  bovs  and  men,  since  co-grammar  master  (and  insep- 
arable   companion)    with    Dr.   T e.       What    an    edifying 

spectacle  did  this  brace  of  friends  present  to  those  who  re- 

l;  3 


34  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

membered  the  anti-socialities  of  their  predecessors  '.  You 
never  met  the  one  by  chance  in  the  street  without  a  wonder, 
which  was  quickly  dissipated  by  the  almost  immediate  sub- 
appearance  of  the  other.  Generally  arm  in  arm,  these  kindly 
coadjutors  lightened  for  each  other  the  toilsome  duties  of 
their  profession ;  and  when,  in  advanced  age,  one  found  it 
convenient  to  retire,  the  other  was  not  long  in  discovering 
that  it  suited  him  to  lay  down  the  fasces  also.  Oh,  it  is 
pleasant,  as  it  is  rare,  to  find  the  same  arm  linked  in  yours 
at  forty,  which  at  thirteen  helped  it  to  turn  over  the  Cicero 
de  Amicitia,  or  some  tale  of  antique  friendship,  which  the 
young  heart  even  then  was  burning  to  anticipate  !     Co-Grecian 

with  S.  was  Th ,  who  has  since   executed    with  ability 

various  diplomatic  functions  at  the  Northern  cotirts.     Th 

was  a  tall,  dark,  saturnine  youth,  sparing  of  speech,  with 
raven  locks.  Thomas  Fanshaw  Middleton  followed  him,  (now 
bishop  of  Calcutta,)  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  in  his  teens. 
He  has  the  reputation  of  an  excellent  critic  ;  and  is  author 
(besides  the  Country  Spectator)  of  a  Treatise  on  the  Greek 
article  against  Sharpe.  M.  is  said  to  bear  his  mitre  high  in 
India,  where  the  regni  novitas  (I  dare  say)  sufficiently  justifies 
the  bearing.  A  humility  quite  as  primitive  as  that  of  Jewel 
or  Hooker  might  not  be  exactly  fitted  to  impress  the  minds  of 
those  Anglo-Asiatic  diocesans  with  a  reverence  for  home  in- 
stitutions, and  the  church  which  those  fathers  watered.  The 
manners  of  M.  at  school,  though  firm,  were  mild  and  unas- 
suming. Next  to  M.  (if  not  senior  to  him)  was  Richards, 
author  of  the  Aboriginal  Britons,  the  most  spirited  of  the  Ox- 
ford prize  poems  ;  a  pale,  studious  Grecian.  Then  followed 
poor  S ,  ill-fated  M !  of  these  the  muse  is  silent. 

Finding  some  of  Edward's  race 
Unhappy,  pass  their  annals  by. 

Come  back  into  memory,  like  as  thou  wert  in  the  day- 
spring  of  thy  fancies,  with  hope  like  a  fiery  column  before 
thee — the  dark  pillar  not  yet  turned — Samuel  Taylor  Cole- 
ridge, Logician,  Metaphysician,  Bard  !  How  have  I  seen  the 
casual  passer  through  the  cloisters  stand  still,  entranced  with 
admiration,  (while  he  weighed  the  disproportion  between  the 
speech  and  the  garb  of  the  young  Mirandula,)  to  hear  thee 
unfold,  in  thy  deep  and  sweet  intonations,  the  mysteries  of 
Jamblichus,  or  Plotinus,  (for  even  in  those  years  thou  waxedst 
not  pale  at  such  philosophic  draughts,)  or  reciting  Homer  in 
his  Greek,  or  Pindar — while  the  walls  of  the  old  Gray  Friars 
re-echoed  to  the  accents  of  the  inspired  charity  boy!  Many 
were  the    "  wit  combats"  (to  dally  a  while  with  the  words  of 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  35 

old  Fuller)  between  him   and  C.  V.  Le  G ,  "  which  two 

I  behold  like  ;i  Spanish  great  galleon,  and  an  English  man- 
of-war  ;  Master  Coleridge,  like  the  former,  was  built  far 
higher  in  learning  .solid,  but  slow  in  his  performances.  C 
\  .  L.,  with  the  English  man-of-war,  lessor  in  bulk,  but  lighter 
in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about,  and  take  ad- 
vantage of  all  winds,  by  the  quickness  of  his  wit  and  in- 
vention." 

Nor  shall  thou,  their  compeer,  be  quickly  forgotten,  Allen, 
with  a  cordial  smile,  and  still  more  cordial  laugh,  with  which 
thou  wert  wont  to  make  the  old  cloisters  shake,  in  thy  cogni- 
tion of  some  poignant  jest  of  theirs ;  or  the  anticipation  of 
some  more  material,  and,  peradventure,  practical  one  of  thine 
own.  Extinct  are  those  smiles,  with  that  beautiful  counte- 
nance, with  which,  (for  thou  wert  the  Nireus  formosus  of  the 
school,)  in  the  days  of  thv  maturer  waggery,  thou  didst  disarm 
the  wrath  of  infuriated  town  damsel,  who,  incensed  by  pro- 
voking pinch,  turning  tigresslike  round,  suddenly  converted 

by  thy  angel  look,  exchanged  the  half-formed,  terrible  "  bl " 

for  a  gentler  greeting — "  Bless  thy  handsome  face  /" 

Next  follow  two,  who  ought  to  be  now  alive,  and  the  friends 

of  Elia — the  junior  Le  G and  F ;  who,  impelled,  the 

former  by  a  roving  temper,  the  latter  by  too  quick  a  sense  of 
neglect — ill  capable  of  enduring  the  slights  poor  sizers  are 
sometimes  subject  to  in  our  seats  of  learning,  exchanged 
their  alma  mater  for  the  camp ;  perishing,   one  by  climate, 

and  one  on  the  plains  of  Salamanca  :  Le  G ,  sanguine, 

volatile,  sweet  natured  ;  F ,  dogged,  faithful,  anticipative 

of  insult,  warm  hearted,  with  something  of  the  old  Roman 
height  about  him. 

Fine,  frank-hearted  Fr ,  the  present  master  of  Hertford, 

with  Marmaduke  T  •,  mildest  of  missionaries — and  both 

my  good  friends  still — close  the  catalogue  of  Grecians  in  my 
time. 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEN. 


fortrj  of  it,  is  composed  ol  two  distinct  races,  the  mm  who  bar- 
row, and  the  mm  ir'io  lend.     To  these  two  original  diversities 
reduced  all  those  impertinent  classifications  of  the 
■>lnc  and  Celtic  tribes    white  men,  black  men,  red  m<  n 


36  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

All  the  dwellers  upon  earth,  "  Parthians,  and  Medes,  and 
Elamites,"  flock  hither,  and  do  naturally  fall  in  with  one  or 
the  other  of  these  primary  distinctions.  The  infinite  superi- 
ority of  the  former,  which  1  choose  to  designate  as  the  great 
race,  is  discernible  in  their  figure,  port,  and  a  certain  instinct- 
ive sovereignty.  The  latter  are  born  degraded.  "  He  shall 
serve  his  brethren."  There  is  something  in  the  air  of  one  of 
this  cast,  lean  and  suspicious  ;  contrasting  with  the  open, 
trusting,  generous  manners  of  the  other. 

Observe  who  have  been  the  greatest  borrowers  of  all  ages 
— Alcibiades,  Falstaff,  Sir  Richard  Steele,  our  late  incompara- 
ble Brinsley — what  a  family  likeness  in  all  four  ! 

What  a  careless,  even  deportment  hath  your  borrower ! 
what  rosy  gills  !  what  a  beautiful  reliance  on  Providence  doth 
he  manifest — taking  no  more  thought  than  lilies  !  What  con- 
tempt for  money — accounting  i^ (yours  and  mine  especially) 
no  better  than  dross  !  What  a  liberal  confounding  of  those 
pedantic  distinctions  of  meum  and  tuum !  or  rather  what  a 
noble  simplification  of  language,  (beyond  Tooke,)  resolving 
these  supposed  opposites  into  one  clear,  intelligible  pronoun 
adjective  !  What  near  approaches  doth  he  make  to  the  primi- 
tive community  !  to  the  extent  of  one  half  of  the  principle  at 
least ! 

He  is  the  true  taxer  who  "  calleth  all  the  world  up  to  be 
taxed  ;"  and  the  distance  is  as  vast  between  him  and  one  of 
us,  as  subsisted  between  the  Augustan  majesty  and  the  poor- 
est obolary  Jew  that  paid  ittribute  pittance  at  Jerusalem  !  His 
exactions,  too,  have  such  a  cheerful,  voluntary  air !  so  far  re- 
moved from  your  sour  parochial  or  state  gatherers — those 
inkhorn  varlets,  who  carry  their  want  of  welcome  in  their 
faces  !  He  cometh  to  jou  with  a  smile,  and  troubleth  you 
with  no  receipt ;  confining  himself  to  no  set.  season.  Every 
day  is  his  Candlemas,  or  his  feast  of  Holy  Michael.  He  ap- 
plicth  the  lene  tormentum  of  a  pleasant  look  to  your  purse — ■ 
which  to  that  gentle  warmth  expands  her  silken  leaves  as 
naturally  as  the  cloak  of  the  traveller,  for  which  sun  and  wind 
contended !  He  is  the  true  Propontic  which  never  ebbeth  ! 
The  sea  which  taketh  handsomely  at  each  man's  hand.  In 
vain  the  victim,  whom  he  delighteth  to  honour,  struggles  with 
destiny  ;  he  is  in  the  net.  Lend  therefore  cheerfully,  oh  man 
ordained  to  lend — that  thou  lose  not  in  the  end,  with  thy 
wordly  penny,  the  reversion  promised.  Combine  not  prepos- 
terously in  thine  own  person  the  penalties  of  Lazarus  and  of 
Dives  1  but,  when  thou  seest  the  proper  authority  coming, 
meet  it  smilingly,  as  it  were  halfway.     Come,  a  handsome 


ES8AY3    OF    ELIA. 


37 


Sacrifice !  See  how  light  he  makes  of  it  !  Strain  not  cour- 
tesies with  a  noble  enemy. 

Reflections  like  the  foregoing  we/e  forced  upon  my  mind 
By  the  death  of  my  old  friend;  Ralph  Bigod,  Esq.,  who  de- 
parted this  life  on  Wednesday  evening;  dying,  as  he  had 
lived,  without  much  trouble.  He  boasted  himself  a  descendant 
from  mighty  ancestors  of  that  name,  who  heretofore  held 
ducal  dignities  in  this  realm.  In  his  actions  and  sentiments 
he  belied  not  the  stock  to  which  he  pretended.  Early  in  lite 
he  found  himself  invested  with  ample  revenues  ;  which,  with 
that  noble  disinterestedness  which  I  have  noticed  as  inherent 
in  men  of  the  great  race,  he  took  almost  immediate  measures 
entirely  to  dissipate  and  bring  to  nothing  ;  for  there  is  some- 
thing revolting  in  the  idea  of  a  king's  holding  a  private  purse  ; 
and  the  thoughts  of  Bigod  were  all  regal.  Thus  furnished, 
by  the  very  act  of  disfurnishment ;  getting  rid  of  the  cumber- 
some luggage  of  riches,  more  apt  (as  one  sings) 

"To  slacken  virtue  and  abate  her  edsje, 
Than  prompt  her  to  ilo  aught  may  merit  praise," 

he  set  forth,  like  some  Alexander,  upon  his  great  enterprise, 
"  borrowing  and  to  borrow  !" 

In  his  periegesis,  or  triumphant  progress  throughout  this 
island,  it  has  been  calculated  that  he  laid  a  tithe  part  of  the 
inhabitants  under  contribution.  1  reject  this  estimate  as 
greatly  exaggerated  :  but  having  had  the  honour  of  accompa- 
nying my  friend,  divers  times,  in  his  perambulations  about  this 
vast  city,  I  own  I  was  greatly  struck  at  first  with  the  prodi- 
gious number  of  faces  we  met,  who  claimed  a  sort  of  respect- 
ful acquaintance  with  us.  lie  was  one  day  so  obliging  as  to 
explain  the  phenomenon.  It  seems  these  were  his  tributa- 
ries ;  feeders  of  his  exchequer  ;  gentlemen,  his  good  friends, 
(as  he  was  pleased  to  express  himself,)  to  whom  he  had  oc- 
casionally been  beholden  for  a  loan.  Their  multitudes  did  no 
way  disconcert  him.  He  rather  took  a  pride  in  numbering 
them  ;  and,  with  Coinus,  seemed  pleased  to  be  "stocked  with 
so  fair  a  herd." 

With  such  sources,  it  was  a  wonder  how  he  contrived  to 
keep  his  treasury  always  empty.  He  did  it  by  force  of  an 
aphorism,  which  he  had  often  in  his  mouth,  that  "  money  kepi 
longer  than  three  days,  stinks."  So  he  made  use  of  it  while 
it  was  fresh.  A  good  part  he  drank  away,  (for  he  was  an 
excellent  tosspot,)  some  he  gave  away,  the  rest  he  threw 
away,  literally  tossing  and  hurling  it  violently  from  him  —  as 
boys  do  burrs,  or  as  if  it  had  been  infectious — into  ponds,  or 
ditches,  or  deep  holes — inscrutable  cavities  of  the  earth  ; 
4 


38  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

or  he  would  bury  it  (where  he  would  never  seek  it  again)  by 
a  river's  side  under  some  bank,  which  (he  would  facetiously 
observe)  paid  no  interest — but  out  away  from  him  it  must  go 
peremptorily,  as  Hagar's  offspring  into  the  wildnerness,  while 
it  was  sweet.  He  never  missed  it.  The  streams  were  per- 
ennial which  fed  his  fisc.  When  new  supplies  became  ne- 
cessary, the  first  person  that  had  the  felicity  to  fall  in  with 
him,  friend  or  stranger,  was  sure  to  contribute  to  the  defi- 
ciency. For  Bigod  had  an  undeniable  way  with  him.  He 
had  a  cheerful  open  exterior,  a  quick  jovial  eye,  a  bald  fore- 
head, just  touched  with  gray  (cana  fides.)  He  anticipated  no 
excuse,  and  found  none.  And,  waiving  for  a  while  my  the- 
ory as  to  the  great  race,  I  would  put  it  to  the  most  untheori- 
zing  reader,  who  may  at  times  have  disposable  coin  in  his 
pocket,  whether  it  is  not  more  repugnant  to  the  kindliness  of 
his  nature  to  refuse  such  a  one  as  I  am  describing,  than  to 
say  no  to  a  poor  petitionary  rogue,  (your  bastard  borrower,) 
who,  by  his  mumping  visnomy,  tells  you  that  he  expects  no- 
thing better  ;  and,  therefore,  whose  preconceived  notions  and 
expectations  you  do  in  reality  so  much  less  shock  in  the  re- 
fusal. 

When  I  think  of  this  man  ;  his  fiery  glow  of  heart ;  his 
swell  of  feeling  ;  how  magnificent,  how  ideal  he  was  ;  how 
great  at  the  midnight  hour  ;  and  when  I  compare  with  him  the 
companions  with  whom  I  have  associated  since,  I  grudge  the 
saving  of  a  few  idle  ducats,  and  think  that  I  am  fallen  into  the 
society  of  lenders  and  little  men. 

To  one  like  Elia,  whose  treasures  are  rather  cased  in  lea- 
ther covers  than  closed  in  iron  coffers,  there  is  a  class  of 
alienators  more  formidable  than  that  which  I  have  touched 
upon  ;  I  mean  your  borrowers  of  books — those  mutilators  of 
collections,  spoilers  of  the  symmetry  of  shelves,  and  creators 
of  odd  volumes.  There  is  Comberbatch,  matchless  in  his 
depredations. 

That  foul  gap  in  the  bottom  shelf  facing  you,  like  a  great 
eye  tooth  knocked  out — (you  are  now  with  me  in  my  little 
back  study  in  Bloomsbury,  reader  !)  with  the  huge  Switzer- 
like  tomes  on  each  side,  (like  the  (Juildhall  giants,  in  their  re- 
formed posture,  guardant  of  nothing,)  once  held  the  tallest  of 
my  folios,  Opera  Bonavcntura,  choice  and  massy  divinity,  to 
which  its  two  supporters  (school  divinity  also,  but  of  a  lesser 
calibre — Bellarininc,  and  Holy  Thomas)  showed  but  as  dwarfs 
— itself  an  A  sea  part !  that  Comberbatch  abstracted  upon  the 
faith  of  a  theory  he  holds,  which  is  more  easy,  I  confess,  for 
me.  to  suffer  by  than  to  refute,  namely,  that  "  the  title  to  prop- 
erty in  a  book,  (my  Bonaventure,  for  instance,)  is  in  exact 


ESSAYS    OF    EMA.  39 

ratio  to  the  claimant's  powers  of  understanding  and  appre'i  i,i- 
ting  the  same."  Should  he  go  on  acting  upon  this  theory , 
winch  of  our  shelves  is  safe? 

The  slight  vacuum  in  the  left-hand  case — two  shelves  from 
the  ceiling — scarcely  distinguishable  but  by  the  quick  eyi  oi 
a  loser — was  whilom  the  commodious  resting  place  of  Brown 
on  Urn  Burial.  C  will  hardly  allege  that  he  knows  more 
about  that  treatise  than  I  do,  who  introduced  it  to  him,  and 
was  indeed  the  first  (of  the  moderns)  to  discover  its  beauties 
— but  so  have  I  known  a  foolish  lover  to  praise  his  mistn  B8  in 
the  presence  of  a  rival  more  qualified  to  carry  her  off  than 
himself.  Just  below,  Dodsley's  Dramas  want  their  fourth 
volume,  where  Yittoria  Corombona  is  !  The  remainder  nine 
are  as  distasteful  as  Priam's  refuse  sons,  when  the  fates  bor- 
rowed Hector.  Here  stood  the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  in 
sober,  state.  There  loitered  the  Complete  Angler  ;  quiet  as  in 
life,  by  some  streamside.  In  yonder  nook,  John  Buncle,  a  wid- 
ower volume,  with  "  eyes  closed,"  mourns  his  ravished  mate. 

One  justice  I  must  do  my  friend,  that  if  he  sometimes, 
like  the  sea,  sweeps  away  a  treasure,  at  another  time,  sealike, 
he  throws  up  as  rich  an  equivalent  to  match  it.  I  have  a 
small  under  collection  of  this  nature,  (my  friend's  gatherings 
in  his  various  calls,)  picked  up,  he  has  forgotten  at  what  odd 
places,  and  deposited  with  as  little  memory  at  mine.  I  take 
in  these  orphans,  the  twice  deserted.  These  proselytes  of 
the  gate  are  welcome  as  the  true  Hebrews.  There  they  stand 
in  conjunction  ;  natives,  and  naturalized.  The  latter  seem  as 
little  disposed  to  inquire  out  their  true  lineage  as  I  am.  1 
charge  no  warehouse  room  for  these  deodands,  nor  shall  ever 
put  mvself  to  the  ungentlemanly  trouble  of  advertising  a  sale 
of  them  to  pay  expenses. 

To  lose  a  volume  to  C.  carries  some  sense  and  meaning  in 
it.  You  are  sure  that  he  will  make  one  hearty  meal  on  your 
viands,  if  he  can  give  no  account  of  the  platter  after  it.  But 
what  moved  thee,  wayward,  spiteful  K.,  to  be  so  importunate 
to  carry  off  with  thee,  in  spite  of  tears  and  abjurations  to  thee 
to  forbear,  the  Letters  of  that  princely  woman,  the  thrice 
noble  Margaret  Newcastle  ? — knowing  at  the  time,  and  know- 
ing  that  I  knew  also,  thou  most  assuredly  wouldst  never  turn 
over  one  leaf  of  the  illustrious  folio — what  but  the  mere 
sj.iiit  of  contradiction,  and  childish  love  of  getting  the  better 
of  thy  friend?  Then,  worst  cut  of  all!  to  transport  it  with 
line  to  the  Gallican  land — 

'  Unworthy  land  to  harbour  such  :>  Bweetnejss, 

\  \  l 1 1 « i. ■  in  \s  liirli  all  ennoblra  welt, 

I'll  re  thoughts,  kind  ill-  thOUgtitS,  li-.T  sex's  WO'lilcr  '" 


40  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

— hadst  thou  not  thy  play  books,  and  books  of  jests  and  fan- 
cies, about  thee,  to  keep  thee  merry,  even  as  thou  keepest  all 
companies  with  thy  quips  and  mirthful  tales  ?  Child  of  the 
greenroom,  it  was  unkindly  done  of  thee.  Thy  wife,  too, 
that  part  French,  better  part  Englishwoman  ! — that  she  could 
fix  upon  no  other  treatise  to  bear  away,  in  kindly  token  of  re- 
membering us,  than  the  works  of  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brook 
— of  which  no  Frenchman,  nor  woman  of  France,  Italy,  or 
England,  was  ever  by  nature  constituted  to  comprehend  a 
tittle  !      Was  there  not  Zimmerman  on  Solitude  1 

Reader,  if  haply  thou  art  blessed  with  a  moderate  collection, 
be  shy  of  showing  it ;  or  if  thy  heart  overflows  to  lend  them, 
lend  thy  books  ;  but  let  it  be  to  such  a  one  as  S.  T.  C. — he 
will  return  them  (generally  anticipating  the  time  appointed) 
with  usury ;  enriched  with  annotations,  tripling  their  value. 
I  have  had  experience.  Many  are  these  precious  MSS.  of 
his — (in  matter  oftentimes,  and  almost  in  quantity  not  unfre- 
quently,  vying  with  the  originals) — in  no  very  clerkly  hand — 
legible  in  my  Daniel ;  in  old  Burton  ;  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ; 
and  those  abstruser  cogitations  of  the  Greville,  now,  alas  ! 
wandering  in  pagan  lands.  I  counsel  thee,  shut  not  thy 
heart,  nor  thy  library,  against  S.  T.  C. 


NEWYEAR'S  EVE. 

Every  man  has  two  birthdays  :  two  days,  at  least,  in 
every  year,  which  set  him  upon  revolving  the  lapse  of  time, 
as  it  affects  his  mortal  duration.  The  one  is  that  which  in 
an  especial  manner  he  terms  his.  In  the  gradual  desuetude 
of  old  observances,  this  custom  of  solemnizing  our  proper 
birthday  has  nearly  passed  away,  or  is  left  to  children,  who 
reflect  nothing  at  all  about  the  matter,  nor  understand  any- 
thing in  it  beyond  cake  and  orange.  But  the  birth  of  a  new 
year  is  of  an  interest  too  wide  to  be  pretermitted  by  king  or 
cobbler.  No  one  ever  regarded  the  first  of  January  with 
indifference.  It  is  that  from  which  all  date  their  time  and 
count  upon  what  is  left.  It  is  the  nativity  of  our  common 
Adam. 

Of  ;ill  sound  of  all  bells — (bells,  the  music  nighest  border- 
ing upon  heaven) — most  solemn  and  touching  is  the  peal 
which  rings  out  the  old  year.  I  never  hear  it  without  a 
gathering  up  of  my  mind  to  a  concentration  of  all  the  images 


EQSAYS    OF    £LIA.  41 

that  have  been  diffused  over  the  past  twelvemonth  ;  all  i  have 
done  or  suffered,  performed  or  neglected — in  that  regretted 
time,  I  begin  to  know  us  worth,  as  when  a  person  dies.  It 
takes  a  personal  colour  ;  nor  was  it  a  poetical  llight  in  a  con- 
temporary, when  he  exclaimed, 

"  I  saw  the  skirts  of  the  departing  year." 

It  is  no  more  than  what  in  sober  sadness  every  one  of  us 
seems  to  be  conscious  of,  in  that  awful  leavetaking.  I  am 
sure  I  felt  it,  and  all  felt  it  with  me,  last  night ;  though  some 
of  my  companions  affected  rather  to  manifest  an  exhilaration 
at  the  birth  of  the  coming  year,  than  any  very  tender  regrets 
for  the  decease  of  its  predecessor.  But  I  am  none  of  tho.su 
who 

"  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest." 

I  am  naturally,  beforehand,  shy  of  novelties — new  books, 
new  faces,  new  years — from  some  mental  twist  which  makes 
it  difficult  in  me  to  face  the  prospective.  I  have  almost  ceased 
to  hope  ;  and  am  sanguine  only  in  the  prospects  of  other 
(former)  years.  I  plunge  into  foregone  visions  and  conclu- 
sions. I  encounter  pellmell  with  past  disappointments.  I  am 
armour  proof  against  old  discouragements.  I  forgive,  or. 
overcome  in  fancy,  old  adversaries.  I  play  over  again  for 
love,  as  the  gamesters  phrase  it,  games,  for  which  I  once  paid 
so  dear.  I  would  scarce  now  have  any  of  those  untoward 
accidents  and  events  of  my  life  reversed.  I  would  no  more 
alter  them  than  the  incidents  of  some  well-contrived  novel. 
Methinks  it  is  better  that  I  should  have  pined  away  seven  of 
my  goldenest  years,  when  I  was  thrall   to  the    fair  hair,  and 

fairer  eyes,  of  Alice  W n,  than  that  so  passionate  a  love 

adventure  should  be  lost.  It  was  better  that  our  family  should 
have  missed  that  legacy,  which  old  Dorrell  cheated  us  of, 
than  that  I  should  have  at.  this  moment  two  thousand  pounds 
in  banco,  and  be  without  the  idea  of  that  specious  old  rogue. 

In  a  degree  beneath  manhood,  it  is  my  infirmity  to  look 
back  upon  those  early  days.  Do  I  advance  a  paradox  when 
I  say,  that,  skipping  over  the  intervention  of  forty  years,  a 
man  may  have  leave  to  love  himself,  without  the  imputation 
of  self-love  ? 

If  I  know  aught  of  myself,  no  one  whose  mind  is  intro- 
spective, and  mine  is  painfully  so,  can  have  a  less  respect  l"T 
his  present  identity,  than  I  have   for  the  man  Elia.      1  know 

him  to  be  light,  and  vain,  ami  humoursome  ;   a  notorious  ; 

addicted  to ;   averse  from  counsel,  neither  taking  it  nor 

offering  it ; besides  ;  a  stammering  bulfoon  ;  what  you 

4* 


42  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

will  ;  lay  it  on,  and  spare  not ;  I  subscribe  to  it  all,  and  much 
more  than  thou  canst  be  willing  to  lay  at  his  door — but  for 
the  child  Elia — that  "  other  me,"  there,  in  the  background — 
I  must  take  leave  to  cherish  the  remembrance  of  that  young 
master,  with  as  little  reference,  I  protest,  to  this  stupid  change- 
ling of  five-and-forty,  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of  some  other 
house,  and  not  of  my  parents.  I  can  cry  over  its  patient 
smallpox  at  five,  and  rougher  medicaments.  I  can  lay  its 
poor  fevered  head  upon  the  sick  pillow  at  Christ's,  and  wake 
with  it  in  surprise  at  the  gentle  posture  of  maternal  tenderness 
hanging  over  it,  that  unknown  had  watched  its  sleep.  I  know 
how  it  shrank  from  any  the  least  colour  of  falsehood.  God 
help  thee,  Elia,  how  art  thou  changed  !  Thou  art  sophisti- 
cated. I  know  how  honest,  how  courageous  (for  a  weakling) 
it  was  ;  how  religious,  how  imaginative,  how  hopeful !  From 
what  have  I  not  fallen,  if  the  child  I  remember  was  indeed 
myself,  and  not  some  dissembling  guardian,  presenting  a  false 
identity,  to  give  the  rule  to  my  unpractised  steps,  and  regu- 
late the  tone  of  my  moral  being  ! 

That  I  am  fond  of  indulging,  beyond  a  hope  of  sympathy, 
in  such  retrospection,  may  be  the  symptom  of  some  sickly 
idiosyncrasy.  Or  is  it  owing  to  another  cause  ;  simply,  that 
being  without  wife  or  family,  I  have  not  learned  to  project 
myself  enough  out  of  myself  ;  and  having  no  offspring  of  my 
own  to  dally  with,  I  turn  back  upon  memory,  and  adopt  my 
own  early  idea  as  my  heir  and  favourite  ?  If  these  specula- 
tions seem  fantastical  to  thee,  reader,  (a  busy  man  perchance,) 
if  I  tread  out  of  the  way  of  thy  sympathy,  and  am  singularly 
conceited  only,  I  retire,  impenetrable  to  ridicule,  under  the 
phantom  cloud  of  Elia. 

The  elders,  with  whom  I  was  brought  up,  were  of  a  char- 
acter not  likely  to  let  slip  the  sacred  observance  of  any  old 
institution,  and  the  ringing  out  of  the  old  year  was  kept  by 
them  with  circumstances  of  peculiar  ceremony.  In  those 
days  the  sound  of  those  midnight  chimes,  though  it  seemed 
to  raise  hilarity  in  all  around  me,  never  failed  to  bring  a  train 
of  pensive  imagery  into  my  fancy.  Yet  I  then  scarce  con- 
ceived what  it  meant,  or  thought  of  it  as  a  reckoning  that  con- 
cerned me.  Not  childhood  alone,  but  the  young  man  till 
thirty,  never  feels  practically  that  he  is  mortal.  He  knows  it 
indeed,  and,  if  need  were,  he  could  preach  a  homily  on  the 
fragility  of  life  ;  but  he  brings  it  not  home  to  himself,  any 
more  than  in  a  hot  June  we  can  appropriate  to  our  imagina- 
tion the  freezing  days  of  December.  But  now,  shall  I  con- 
fess a  truth  ?  1  feel  these  audits  but  too  powerfully.  I  begin 
to  count  the  probabilities  of  my  duration,  and  to  grudge  at  the 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  43 

expenditure  of  moments  and  shortest  periods,  like  miser's  far- 
things. In  proportion  as  the  years  both  lessen  and  shorten, 
I  set  more  rount  upon  their  periods,  and  would  fain  lay  inv 
ineffectual  finger  upon  the  spoke  of  the  great  wheel.  I  am 
not  content  to  pass  away  "  like  a  weaver's  shuttle."  Those 
metaphors  solace  me  not,  nor  sweeten  the  Unpalatable  draught 
of  mortality.  I  care  not  to  be  carried  with  the  tide,  that 
smoothly  bears  human  life  to  eternity  ;  and  reluct  at  the  in- 
evitable course  of  destiny.  I  am  in  love  with  this  green 
earth  ;  the  face  of  town  and  country  ;  the  unspeakable  rural 
solitudes,  and  the  sweet  security  of  streets.  I  would  set  up 
my  tabernacle  here.  I  am  content  to  stand  still  at  the  age  to 
which  I  am  arrived — I,  and  my  friends  :  to  be  no  younger,  no 
richer,  no  handsomer.  I  do  not  want  to  be  weaned  by  age  ; 
or  drop,  like  mellow  fruit,  as  they  say,  into  the  grave.  Any 
alteration,  on  this  earth  of  mine,  in  diet  or  in  lodging,  puzzles 
and  discomposes  me.  My  household  gods  plant  a  terrible 
fixed  foot,  and  are  not  rooted  up  without  blood.  They  do 
not  willingly  seek  LaVinian  shores.  A  new  state  of  being 
staggers  me. 

Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks,  and  summer 
holydays,  and  the  greenness  of  fields,  and  the  delicious  juices 
of  meats  and  fishes,  and  society,  and  the  cheerful  glass,  and 
candlelight,  and  fireside  conversations,  and  innocent  vanities 
and  jests,  and  irony  itself- — do  these  things  go  out  with  life  ? 

Can  a  ghost  laugh,  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides,  when  you 
are  pleasant  with  him  1 

And  you,  ray  midnight  darlings,  my  folios  !  must  I  part 
with  the  intense  delight  of  having  you  (huge  armfuls)  in  mv 
embraces  ?  Must  knowledge  come  to  me,  if  it  come  at  all, 
by  some  awkward  experiment  of  intuition,  and  no  longer  by 
this  familiar  process  of  reading  ? 

Shall  I  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the  smiling  indica- 
tions which  point  me  to  them  here,  the  recognisable  face  ; 
"  the  sweet  assurance  of  a  look  ?" 

In  winter,  this  intolerable  disinclination  to  dying,  to  give  it 
its  mildest  name,  does  more  especially  haunt  and  beset  me. 
In  a  genial  August  noon,  beneath  a  sweltering  sky,  death  is 
almost  problematic.  At  those  times  do  such  poor  snakes  as 
myself  enjoy  an  immortality.  Then  we  expand  and  burgeon. 
Then  are  we  as  strong  again,  as  valiant  again,  as  wise  again, 
and  a  great  deal  taller.  The  blast  that  nips  and  shrinks  me 
puts  me  in  thoughts  of  death.  AH  things  allied  to  the  unsub- 
stantial wait  upon  that  master  feeling  ;  cold,  numbness, 
dreams,  perplexity  ;  moonlight  itself,  with  its  shadow  v  and 
spectral  appearances,  that  cold  ghost  of  the  sun,  or  Phoebus's 


44  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

sickly  sister,  like  that  innutritious  one  denounced  in  the  Can- 
ticles :  I  am  none  of  her  minions ;  I  hold  with  the  Persian. 

Whatsoever  thwarts,  or  puts  me  out  of  my  way,  brings 
death  into  my  mind.  All  partial  evils,  like  humours,  run  into 
that  capital  plague  sore.  I  have  heard  some  profess  an  indif- 
ference to  life.  Such  hail  the  end  of  their  existence  as  a 
port  of  refuge  ;  and  speak  of  the  grave  as  of  some  soft  arms,  in 
which  they  may  slumber  as  on  a  pillow.  Some  have  wooed 
death — but  out  upon  thee,  I  say,  thou  foul,  ugly  phantom.'.  I 
detest,  abhor,  execrate,  and  (with  Friar  John)  give  thee  to  six- 
score  thousand  devils,  as  in  no  instance  to  be  excused  or  toler- 
ated, but  shunned  as  a  universal  viper  ;  to  be  branded,  pro- 
scribed, and  spoken  evil  of!  In  no  way  can  I  be  brought  to 
digest  thee,  thou  thin,  melancholy  Privation,  or  more  frightful 
and  confounding  Positive  1 

Those  antidotes,  prescribed  against  the  fear  of  thee,  are 
altogether  frigid  and  insulting  like  thyself.  For  what  satis- 
faction hath  a  man,  that  he  shall  "  lie  down  with  kings  and 
emperors  in  death,"  who  in  his  lifetime  never  greatly  coveted 
the  society  of  such  bedfellows  ?  or,  forsooth,  that  "  so  shall 
the  fairest  face  appear  ?" — why,  to  comfort  me,  must  Alice 

W n  be  a  goblin  ?     More  than  all,  I  conceive  disgust  at 

those  impertinent  and  misbecoming  familiarities,  inscribed 
upon  your  ordinary  tombstones.  Every  dead  man  must  take 
upon  himself  to  be  lecturing  me  with  his  odious  truism,  that 
"  such  as  he  now  is,  I  must  shortly  be."  Not  so  shortly, 
friend,  perhaps,  as  thou  imaginest.  In  the  mean  time  I  am 
alive.  I  move  about.  I  am  worth  twenty  of  thee.  Know 
thy  betters  !  Thy  Newyear's  days  are  past.  I  survive,  a 
jolly  candidate  for  1821.  Another  cup  of  wine  ;  and  while 
that  turncoat  bell,  that  just  now  mournfully  chanted  the  obse- 
quies of  1820  departed,  with  changed  notes  lustily  rings  in  a 
successor,  let  us  attune  to  its  peal  the  song  made  on  a  like 
occasion   by  hearty,  cheerful  Mr.  Cotton  :  — 


THE  NEW  YEAR. 

Hark,  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 
Tells  us  the  day  himself 's  not  far  ; 
And  see  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 
Me  gilds  the  western  hills  with  light. 
With  him  old  Janus  doth  appear, 
Peeping  into  the  future  year, 
With  such  a  look,  as  seoms  to  say, 
The  prospect  is  not  good  that  way. 
Thus  do  we  rise  ill  sights  to  see. 
And  'gainst  ourselves  to  prophesy; 
When  the  prophetic  fear  of  things 
A  more  tormenting  mischief  brings, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  45 

More  full  of  soul-tormenting  gall, 

Than  direst  mischii  stall. 

Km  stay  '  tut t  siav  '  metbinka  my  sight, 

licitcr  inform'd  by  clearer  light, 

Discern!  m  renensss  m  trial  broW, 

Thai  ''II  ooDtracted  seem'd  but  now. 

His  reversed  face  ma*  Bhow  distaste, 

And  frown  upon  the  His  are  ]>:is t  ; 

But  that  which  this  way  looks  is  clear, 

And  smiles  Upon  tiic  newborr)  year. 

He  Looks!  too,  from  a  place  bo  lugh, 

The  year  lies  open  to  Ins  eye  ; 

And  all  the  moments  opp^  are 

To  the  exact  discoverer. 

Yet  more  and  more  he  smiles  upon 

The  happy  revolution. 

Why  should  we  then  suspect  or  fear 

The  influences  of  a  year, 

So  smiles  upon  us  the  first  mom, 

And  speaks  us  good  as  soon  as  horn  ? 

Plague  on't  !  the  hist  was  ill  enough, 
This  cannot  but  make  latter  proof  . 

Or,  at  the  worst,  as  we  brush'd  through 

The  last,  why  so  we  may  this  too  ; 
And  then  the  next  in  reason  should 
Be  superexcellently  good : 
For  the  worst  ills  (we  daily  see) 
Have  no  more  perpetuity 
Than  the  best  fortunes  that  do  fall ; 
Which  also  bring  us  wherewithal 
Longer  their  being  to  support 
Than  those  do  of  the  other  sort ; 
And  who  has  one  good  year  in  three, 
And  yet  repines  at  destiny, 
Appears  ungiateful  in  the  case, 
And  merits  not  the  good  he  has. 
Then  let  us  welcome  the  new  guest 
With  lusty  brimmers  of  the  best ; 
Mirth  always  should  good  fortune  meet, 
And  renders  e'en  disaster  sweet; 
And  though  the  princess  turn  her  back, 
Let  us  hut  line  ourselves  with  sack, 
We  better  shall  by  far  hold  out. 
Till  the  next  year  she  face  about. 

How  say  you,  reader — do  not  these  verses  smack  of  the 
rough  magnanimity  of  the  old  English  vein  ?  Do  they  not 
fortify  like  a  cordial  ;  enlarging  the  heart,  and  productive  of 
sweet  blood,  and  generous  spirits  in  the  concoction  ?  Where 
be  those  puling  fears  of  death,  just  now  expressed  or  affected  ? 
Passed  like  a  cloud — absorbed  in  the  purging  sunlight  of  clear 
poetry — clean  washed  away  by  a  wave  of  genuine  Helicon, 
your  only  spa  for  these  hypochondries.  And  now  another 
cup  of  the  generous  !  and  a  merry  Newyear,  and  many  of 
them,  to  you  all,  my  masters ! 


46  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


MRS.  BATTLE'S  OPINIONS  ON  WHIST. 

"  A  clear  fire,  a  clean  hearth,  and  the  rigour  of  the  game." 
This  was  the  celebrated  wish  of  old  Sarah  Battle,  (now  with 
God,)  who,  next  to  her  devotions,  loved  a  good  game  at  whist. 
She  was  none  of  your  lilkewarm  gamesters,  your  half  and 
half  players,  who  have  no  objection  to  take  a  hand,  if  you 
want  one  to  make  up  a  rubber  ;  who  affirm  that  they  have  no 
pleasure  in  winning  ;  that  they  like  to  win  one  game,  and 
lose  another  ;  that  they  can  while  away  an  hour  very  agree- 
ably at  a  card  table,  but  are  indifferent  whether  they  play  or 
no ;  and  will  desire  an  adversary,  who  has  slipped  a  wrong  card, 
to  take  it  up  and  play  another.  These  insufferable  triflers 
are  the  curse  of  a  table.  One  of  these  flies  will  spoil  a  whole 
pot.  Of  such  it  may  be  said,  that  they  do  not  play  at  cards, 
but  only  play  at  playing  at  them. 

Sarah  Battle  was  none  of  that  breed.  She  detested  them, 
as  I  do,  from  her  heart  and  soul  ;  and  would  not,  save  upon 
a  striking  emergency,  willingly  seat  herself  at  the  same  table 
with  them.  She  loved  a  thorough-paced  partner,  a  determined 
enemy.  She  took,  and  gave,  no  concessions.  She  hated 
favours.  She  never  made  a  revoke,  nor  ever  passed  it  over 
in  her  adversary  without  exacting  the  utmost  forfeiture.  She 
fought  a  good  fight  cut  and  thrust.  She  held  not  her  good 
sword  (her  cards)  "  like  a  dancer."  She  sat  bolt  upright  ; 
and  neither  showed  you  her  cards,  nor  desired  to  see  yours. 
All  people  have  their  blind  side — their  superstitions  ;  and  I 
have  heard  her  declare,  under  the  rose,  that  hearts  was  her 
favourite  suit. 

I  never  in  my  life — and  I  knew  Sarah  Battle  many  of  the 
best  years  of  it — saw  her  take  out  her  snuil'box  when  it  was 
her  turn  to  play  ;  or  snuff  a  candle  in  the  middle  of  a  game  ; 
or  ring  for  a  servant,  till  it  was  fairly  over.  She  never  intro- 
duced, or  connived  at,  miscellaneous  conversation  during  its 
process.  As  she  emphatically  observed,  cards  were  cards  ; 
and  if  I  ever  saw  unmingled  distaste  in  her  line  last-century 
countenance,  it  was  at  the  airs  of  a  young  gentleman  of  a 
literary  turn,  who  had  been  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  take 
a  hand  ;  and  who,  in  his  excess  of  candour,  declared,  that  he 
thought  there  was  no  harm  in  unbending  the  mind  nuw  and 
then,  after  serious  studies,  in  recreations  of  that  kind  !  She 
could  not  bear  to  have  her  noble  occupation,  to  which   she 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  47 

wound  up  her  faculties,  considered  in  that  ' i ulit .  It  was  her 
business,  her  duty,  the  thing  she  came  into  the  world  to  do — 
and  she  did  it.  .She  unbent  her  mind  afterward — over  a 
book. 

Pope  was  her  favourite  author  :  his  Rape  of  the  Lock,  her 
favourite  work.  She  once  did  me  the  favour  to  play  over 
with  me  (with  the  cards)  his  celebrated  game  of  Ombre  in 
that  poem  ;  and  to  explain  to  me  how  far  it  agreed  with,  and 
in  what  points  it  would  be  found  to  differ,  from,  tradrille.  Her 
illustrations  were  apposite  and  poignant  ;  and  1  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  sending  the  substance  of  them  to  Mr.  Bowles  :  hut  I 
suppose  they  came  too  late  to  be  inserted  among  his  inge- 
nious notes  upon  that  author. 

Quadrille,  she  has  often  told  me,  was  her  first  love  ;  but 
whist  had  engaged  her  maturer  esteem.  The  former,  she 
said,  was  showy  and  specious,  and  likely  to  allure  young  per- 
sons. The  uncertainty  and  quick  shifting  of  partners — a 
thing  which  the  constancy  of  whist  abhors  ;  the  dazzling  su- 
premacy and  regal  investiture  of  Spadille — absurd,  as  she 
justly  observed,  in  the  pure  aristocracy  of  whist,  where  his 
crown  and  garter  give  him  no  proper  power  above  his  brother 
nobility  of  the  Aces  ;  the  giddy  vanity,  so  taking  to  the  inex- 
perienced, of  playing  alone  ;  above  all,  the  overpowering  at- 
tractions of  a  Sans  Prendre  Vole — to  the  triumph  of  which 
there  is  certainly  nothing  parallel  or  approaching,  in  the  con- 
tingencies of  whist :  all  these,  she  would  say,  make  quadrille 
a  <:ame  of  captivation  to  the  young  and  enthusiastic.  But 
whist  was  the  solider  game  :  that  was  her  word.  It  was  a 
long  meal ;  not,  like  quadrille,  a  feast  of  snatches.  One  or 
two  rubbers  might  co-extend  in  duration  with  an  evening. 
They  gave  time  to  form  rooted  friendships,  to  cultivate  steady 
enmities.  She  despised  the  chance-started,  capricious,  and 
ever-fluctuating  alliances  of  the  other.  The  skirmishes  of 
quadrille,  she  would  say,  reminded  her  of  the  petty  ephemeral 
embroilments  of  the  little  Italian  states,  depicted  by  Machia- 
vel  ;  perpetually  changing  postures  and  connections  ;  bitter 
foes  to-day,  sugared  darlings  to-morrow  ;  kissing  and  scratch- 
ing in  a  breath  ;  but  the  wars  of  whist  were  comparable  to 
the  long,  steady,  deep-rooted,  rational  antipathies  of  the  great 
French  and  English  nations. 

A  sjrave  simplicity  was  what  she  chiefly  admired  in  her 
favourite  game.  There  was  nothing  silly  in  it,  like  the  abb 
in  crihbage — nothing  superfluous.  No  flush/  s — that  most  ir- 
rational of  all  pleas  that  a  reasonable  being  can  set  up;  that 
any  one  should  claim  four  by  virtue  of  holding  cards  of  the 
same  mark  and  colour,  without  reference   to  the  playing  of 


48  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  game,  or  the  individual  worth  or  pretensions  of  the  cards 
themselves!  She  held  this  to  be  a  solecism  ;  as  pitiful  an 
ambition  at  cards  as  alliteration  is  in  authorship.  She  de- 
spised superficiality,  and  looked  deeper  than  the  colours  of 
things.  Suits  were  soldiers,  she  would  say,  and  must  have  a 
uniformity  of  array  to  distinguish  them  :  but  what  should  we 
say  to  a  foolish  squire,  who  should  claim  a  merit  from  dress- 
ing up  his  tenantry  in  red  jackets,  that  never  were  to  be  mar- 
shalled— never  to  take  the  field  1  She  even  wished  that 
whist  were  more  simple  than  it  is  ;  and,  in  my  mind,  would 
have  stripped  it  of  some  appendages,  which,  in  the  state  of 
human  frailty,  may  be  venially,  and  even  commendably  al- 
lowed of.  She  saw  no  reason  for  the  deciding  of  the  trump 
by  the  turn  of  the  card.  Why  not  one  suit  always  trumps  ? 
Why  two  colours,  when  the  mark  of  the  suits  would  have 
sufficiently  distinguished  them  without  it  ? 

"  But  the  eye,  my  dear  madam,  is  agreeably  refreshed  with 
the  variety.  Man  is  not  a  creature  of  pure  reason — he  must 
have  his  senses  delightfully  appealed  to.  We  see  in  it  Ro- 
man Catholic  countries,  where  the  music  and  the  paintings 
draw  in  many  to  worship,  whom  your  Quaker  spirit  of  unsen- 
sualizing  would  have  kept  out.  You  yourself  have  a  pretty 
collection  of  paintings — but  confess  to  me,  whether,  walking 
in  your  gallery  at  Sandham,  among  those  clear  Vandykes,  or 
among  the  Paul  Potters  in  the  anteroom,  you  ever  felt  your 
bosom  glow  with  an  elegant  delight,  at  all  comparable  to  that 
you  have  it  in  your  power  to  experience  most  evenings  over 
a  well-arranged  assortment  of  the  court  cards  ? — the  pretty 
antic  habits,  like  heralds  in  a  procession — the  gay,  triumph- 
assuring  scarlets — the  contrasting,  deadly-killing  sables — the 
'  hoary  majesty  of  spades' — Pam  in  all  his  glory  ! 

"  All  these  might  be  dispensed  with  ;  and,  with  their  naked 
names  upon  the  drab  pasteboard,  the  game  might  go  on  very 
well,  pictureless.  But  the  beauty  of  cards  would  be  extin- 
guished for  ever.  Stripped  of  all  that  is  imaginative  in  them, 
they  must  degenerate  into  mere  gambling.  Imagine  a  dull 
deal  board,  or  drumhead,  to  spread  them  on,  instead  of  that 
nice  verdant  carpet,  (next  to  nature's,)  fittest  arena  for  those 
rourtly  combatants  to  play  their  gallant  jousts  and  tourneys  in  ! 
Exchange  those  delicately  turned,  ivory  markers — (work  of 
Chinese  artist,  unconscious  of  their  symbol — or  as  profanely 
flighting  their  true  application  as  the  arrantest  Ephesian  jour- 
neyman that  turned  out  those  little  shrines  for  the  goddess) — 
exchange  them  for  little  bits  of  leather  (our  ancestors' money) 
or  chalk  and  a  slate  !" 

The  old  lady,  with  a  smile,  confessed  the  soundness  of  my 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  49 

logic  ;  and  to  her  approbation  of  my  arguments  on  her  fa- 
vourite topic  that  evening,  I  have  always  fancied  myself  in- 
debted for  the  legacy  of  a  curious  cribbage  board,  made  of 
the  finest  Sienna  marble,  which  her  maternal  uncle  (old 
Walter  Plumer,  whom  I  have  elsewhere  celebrated)  brought 
with  him  from  Florence  :  this,  and  a  trifle  of  five  hundred 
pounds,  came  to  me  at  her  death. 

The  former  bequest  (which  I  do  not  least  value)  I  have 
kept  with  religious  care  ;  though  she  herself,  to  confess  a 
truth,  was  never  greatly  taken  with  cribbage.  It  was  an 
essentially  vulgar  game,  I  heard  her  say — disputing  with  her 
uncle,  who  was  very  partial  to  it.  She  could  never  heartily 
bring  her  mouth  to  pronounce  "go" — or  "that's  ago."  She 
called  it  an  ungrammatical  game.  The  pegging  teased  her. 
I  once  knew  her  to  forfeit  a  rubber,  (a  five-dollar  stake,)  be- 
cause she  would  not  take  advantage  of  the  turn-up  knave, 
which  would  have  given  it  her,  but  which  she  must  have 
claimed  by  the  disgraceful  tenure  of  declaring  "  two  for  his 
heels."  There  is  something  extremely  genteel  in  this  sort  of 
sell-denial.     Sarah  Battle  was  a  gentlewoman  born. 

Piquet  she  held  the  best  game  at  cards  for  two  persons, 
though  she  would  ridicule  the  pedantry  of  the  terms — such  as 
pique — repique — the  capot — they  savoured  (she  thought)  of 
affectation.  But  games  for  two,  or  even  three,  she  never 
greatly  cared  for.  She  loved  the  quadrate,  or  square.  She 
would  argue  thus  :  Cards  are  warfare  ;  the  ends  are  gain, 
with  glory.  But  cards  are  war,  in  disguise  of  a  sport :  when 
single  adversaries  encounter,  the  ends  proposed  are  too  palp- 
able. By  themselves,  it  is  too  close  a  fight ;  with  spectators, 
it  is  not  much  bettered.  No  looker-on  can  be  interested,  ex- 
cept for  a  bet,  and  then  it  is  a  mere  affair  of  money  ;  he  cares 
not  for  your  luck  sympathetically,  or  for  your  play.  Three 
are  still  worse  ;  a  mere  naked  war  of  every  man  against  every 
man,  as  in  cribbage,  without  league  or  alliance  ;  or  a  rotation 
of  petty  and  contradictory  interests,  a  succession  of  heartless 
leagues,  and  not  much  more  hearty  infractions  of  them,  as  in 
tradrille.  But  in  square  games  (she  meant  whist)  all  that  is 
possible  to  be  attained  in  cardplaying  is  accomplished.  There 
are  the  incentives  of  profit  with  honour,  common  to  every 
species — though  the  latter  can  be  but  very  imperfectly  enjoyed 
in  those  other  games,  where  the  spectator  is  only  feebly  a 
participator.  But  the  parties  in  whist  are  spectators  and 
principals  too.  They  are  a  theatre  to  themselves,  and  a 
looker-on  is  not  wanted.  He  is  rather  worse  than  nothing, 
and  an  impertinence.  Whist  abhors  neutrality,  or  interests 
beyond  its  sphere.  You  glory  in  some  surprising  stroke  of 
5  C 


50  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

skill  or  fortune,  not  because  a  cold — or  even  an  interested — 
bystander  witnesses  it,  but  because  your  partner  sympathizes 
in  the  contingency.    You  win  for  two.    You  triumph  for  two. 
Two  are  exalted.     Two  again  are  mortified  ;  which  divides 
their  disgrace,  as  the  conjunction  doubles  (by  taking  off  the 
invidiousness)  your  glories.     Two  losing  to  two  are  better 
reconciled   than   one   to  one  in  that  close   butchery.     The 
hostile   feeling   is    weakened   by  multiplying   the    channels. 
War  becomes  a  civil  game.     By  such  reasonings  as  these 
the  old  lady  was  accustomed  to  defend  her  favourite  pastime. 
No  inducement  could  ever  prevail  upon  her  to  play  at  any 
game,  where  chance  entered  into  the  composition,  for  nothing. 
Chance,  she  would  argue — and  here,  again,  admire  the  sub- 
tlety of  her  conclusion  ! — chance  is  nothing,  but  where  some- 
thing else  depends  upon  it.     It  is  obvious,  that   cannot   be 
glory.     What  rational  cause  of  exultation  could  it  give  to  a 
man  to  turn  up  size  ace  a  hundred  times  together  by  himself, 
or  before  spectators,  where  no  stake  was  depending  ?     Make 
a  lottery  of  a  hundred  thousand  tickets  with  but  one  fortunate 
number — and  what  possible  principle  of  our  nature,  except 
stupid  wonderment,  could  it  gratify  to  gain  that  number  as 
many    times   successively,    without  a  prize  1 — therefore  she 
disliked  the  mixture  of  chance  in  backgammon,  where  it  was 
not  played  for  money.     She  called  it  foolish,  and  those  people 
idiots,  who  were  taken  with  a  lucky  hit  under  such  circum- 
stances.    Games  of  pure  skill  were  as   little  to  her  fancy. 
Played  for  a  stake,  they  were  a  mere  system  of  overreaching. 
Played  for  glory,  they  were  a  mere  setting  of  one  man's  wit 
— his   memory,  or  combination    faculty  rather — against  an- 
other's ;  like  a  mock  engagement  at  a  review,  bloodless  and 
profitless.      She   could   not    conceive    a   game   wanting    the 
sprightly  infusion  of  chance — the  handsome  excuses  of  good 
fortune.     Two  people  playing  at  chess  in  a  corner  of  a  room, 
while  whist   was   stirring  in   the  centre,  would  inspire  her 
with  insufferable  horror  and  ennui.      Those  well-cut  simili- 
tudes of  castles   and  knights,  the  imagery  of  the  board,  she 
would  argue,  (and  I  think  in  this  case  justly,)  were  entirely 
misplaced  and  senseless.     Those  hard-headed  contests  can 
in  no  instance  ally  with  the   fancy.     They  reject  form  and 
colour.     A  pencil  and  dry  slate  (she  used  to  say)  were  the 
proper  arena  for  such  combatants. 

To  those  puny  objectors  against  cards,  as  nurturing  the  bad 
passions,  she  would  retort,  that  men  is  a  gaming  animal.  He 
must  be  always  trying  to  get  the  better  in  something  or 
other:  that  this  passion  can  scarcely  be  more  safely  expended 
than   upon    a  game  at  cards :    that   cards  are   a  temporary 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  51 

illusion  ;  in  truth,  a  mere  drama  ;  for  we  do  but  play  at  being 
mightily  concerned,  where  a  few  idle  shillings  are  at  stake, 
yet  during  the  illusion,  we  an  as  mightily  concerned  as  those 
whose  stake  is  crowns  and  kingdoms.  They  arc;  a  sort  of 
dream  fighting;  much  ado,  great,  buttling,  and  little  blood- 
shed ;  mighty  means  for  disproportioned  ends  ;  quite  as  di- 
verting, and  a  great  deal  more  innoxious,  than  many  of  those 
more  serious  games  of  life,  which  men  play,  without  esteem- 
ing them  to  be  such. 

With  great  deference  to  the  old  lady's  judgment  on  these 
matters,  1  think  I  have  experienced  some  moments  in  my  life, 
when  playing  at  cards  for  nothing  has  even  been  agreeable. 
When  I  am  in  sickness,  or  not  in  the  best  spirits,  I  sometimes 
call  lor  the  cards,  and  play  a  game  at  piquet  for  love  with  my 
Cousin  Bridget — Bridget  Elia. 

I  grant  there  is  something  sneaking  in  it ;  but  with  a  tooth- 
ache, or  a  sprained  ankle — when  you  are  subdued  and  hum 
ble — you  are  glad  to  put  up  with  an  inferior  spring  of  action. 

There  is  such  a  thing  in  nature,  I  am  convinced,  as  sick 
whist. 

1  grant  it  is  not  the  highest  style  of  man — I  deprecate  the 
manes  of  Sarah  Battle — she  lives  not,  alas  !  to  whom  I  should 
apologize. 

At  such  times,  those  terms  which  my  old  friend  objected  to, 
come  in  as  something  admissible.  I  love  to  get  a  tierce  or  a 
quatorze,  though  they  mean  nothing.  I  am  subdued  to  an  in- 
ferior interest.     Those  shadows  of  winning  amuse  me. 

That  last  game  I  had  with  my  sweet  cousin  (I  capoted  her 
— dare  I  tell  thee,  how  foolish  I  am  ?) — I  wished  it  might 
have  lasted  for  ever,  though  we  gained  nothing  and  lost  no- 
thing, though  it  was  a  mere  shade  of  play ;  I  would  be  con- 
tent to  go  on  in  that  idle  folly  for  ever.  The  pipkin  should 
be  ever  boiling  that  was  to  prepare  the  gentle  lenitive  to 
my  foot,  which  Bridget  was  doomed  to  apply  after  the  game 
was  over  ;  and  as  I  do  not  much  relish  appliances,  there  it 
should  ever  bubble.     Bridget  and  I  should  be  ever  playing. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  EARS. 

I  have  no  ear. 

Mistake  me  not,  reader — nor  imagine  that  I  am  by  nature 
dostitute  of  those  exterior  twin  appendages,  hanging  orna- 

C2 


52  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

merits,  and  (architecturally  speaking)  handsome  volutes  to  the 
human  capital.  Better  my  mother  had  never  borne  me.  I  am, 
I  think,  rather  delicately  than  copiously  provided  with  those 
conduits  ;  and  I  feel  no  disposition  to  envy  the  mule  for  his 
plenty,  or  the  mole  for  her  exactness,  in  those  ingenious 
labyrinthine  inlets — those  indispensable  side  intelligencers. 

Neither  have  I  incurred,  or  done  anything  to  incur,  with 
Defoe,  that  hideous  disfigurement,  which  constrained  him  to 
draw  upon  assurance  to  feel  "  quite  unabashed,"  and  at  ease 
upon  that  article.  I  was  never,  I  thank  my  stars,  in  the  pil- 
lory ;  nor,  if  I  read  them  aright,  is  it  within  the  compass  of 
my  destiny  that  I  ever  should  be. 

When,  therefore,  I  say  that  I  have  no  ear,  you  will  under- 
stand me  to  mean — -for  music.  To  say  that  this  heart  never 
melted  at  the  concourse  of  sweet  sounds,  would  be  a  foul  self- 
libel.  "  Water  parted  from  the  Sea"  never  fails  to  move  it 
strangely.  So  does  "  In  Infancy.''''  But  they  were  used  to  be 
sung  at  her  harpsichord  (the  oldfashioned  instrument  in  vogue 
in  those  days)  by  a  gentlewoman — the  gentlest,  sure,  that 
ever  merited  the  appellation — the  sweetest — why  should  I 

hesitate    to    name   Mrs.   S ,    once  the    blooming    Fanny 

Wetheral  of  the  Temple — who  had  power  to  thrill  the  sold 
of  Elia,  small  imp  as  he  was,  even  in  his  long  coats  ;  and  to 
make  him  glow,  tremble,  and  blush  with  a  passion,  that  not 
faintly  indicated  the  dayspring  of  that  absorbing  sentiment, 
which  was  afterward  destined  to  overwhelm  and  subdue  his 
nature  quite,  for  Alice  W n. 

I  even  think  that  sentimentally  I  am  disposed  to  harmonv. 
But  organically  I  am  incapable  of  a  tune.  I  have  been  prac- 
tising "  God  save  the  King'"  all  my  life  ;  whistling  and  hum- 
ming it  over  to  myself  in  solitary  corners  ;  and  am  not  yet 
arrived,  they  tell  me,  within  many  quavers  of  it.  Yet  hath 
the  loyalty  of  Elia  never  been  impeached. 

I  am  not  without  suspicion,  that  I  have  an  undeveloped 
faculty  of  music  within  me.  For,  thrumming,  in  my  wild 
way,  on  my  friend  A.'s  piano,  the  other  morning,  while  he 
was  engaged  in  an  adjoining  parlour — on  his  return  he  was 
pleased  to  say  "  he  thought  it  could  not  be  the  maid .'"  On 
his  first  surprise  at  hearing  the  keys  touched  in  somewhat  an 
airy  and  masterful  way,  not  dreaming  of  me,  his  suspicions 
had  lighted  on  Jenny.  But  a  grace,  snatched  from  a  superior 
refinement,  soon  convinced  him  that  some  being — technically 
perhaps  deficient,  but  higher  informed  from  a  principle  com- 
mon to  all  the  fine  arts — had  swayed  the  keys  to  a  mood 
which  Jenny,  with  all  her  (less  cultivated)  enthusiasm,  could 
never  have  elicited  from  them.     I  mention  this  as  a  proof  ol 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  53 

my  friend's  penetration,  and  not  with  any  view  of  disparaging 
Jenny. 

Scientifically  I  could  never  be  made  to  understand  (yet  have 
I  taken  some  pains)  what  a  note  in  music  is;  or  how  one 
note  should  differ  from  another.  .Much  less  in  voices  can  I 
distinguish  a  soprano  from  a  tenor.  Only  sometimes  the 
thorough  base  I  contrive  to  guess  at,  from  its  being  super- 
eminently harsh  and  disagreeable.  I  tremble,  however,  for 
my  misapplication  of  the  simplest  terms  of  that  which  I  dis- 
claim. \V bile  I  profess  my  ignorance,  I  scarce  know  what  to 
say  I  am  ignorant  of.  I  hate,  perhaps,  by  misnomers.  Sos- 
tenuto  and  adagio  stand  in  the  like  relation  of  obscurity  to  me  ; 
and  sol,  fa,  mi,  re,  is  as  conjuring  as  Baraliplon. 

It  is  hard  to  stand  alone — in  an  age  like  this — (constituted 
to  the  quick  and  critical  perception  of  all  harmonious  combi- 
nations, I  verily  believe,  beyond  all  preceding  ages,  since  Ju- 
bal  stumbled  upon  the  gamut) — to  remain,  as  it  were,  singly 
unimpressible  to  the  magic  influences  of  an  art,  which  is  said 
to  have  such  an  especial  stroke  at  soothing,  elevating,  and  re- 
fining the  passions.  Yet  rather  than  break  the  candid  current 
of  my  confessions,  I  must  avow  to  you,  that  I  have  received 
a  great  deal  more  pain  than  pleasure  from  this  so  cried-up 
faculty. 

I  am  constitutionally  susceptible  of  noises.  A  carpenter's 
hammer,  ID  a  warm  summer  noon,  will  fret  me  into  more  than 
midsummer  madness.  But  those  unconnected,  unset  sounds, 
are  nothing  to  the  measured  malice  of  music.  The  ear  is 
passive  to  those  single  strokes  ;  willingly  enduring  stripes, 
while  it  hath  no  task  to  con.  To  music  it  cannot  be  passive. 
It  will  strive — mine  at  least  will,  'spite  of  its  inaptitude — to 
thrid  the  maze  ;  like  an  unskilled  eye  painfully  poring  upon 
hieroglyphics.  I  have  sat  through  an  Italian  opera,  till,  for 
sheer  pain  and  inexplicable  anguish,  I  have  rushed  out  into 
the  noisiest  places  of  the  crowded  streets,  to  solace  myself 
with  sounds  which  I  was  not  obliged  to  follow,  and  get  rid  of 
the  distracting  torment  of  endless,  fruitless,  barren  attention  ! 
I  take  refuge  in  the  unpretending  assemblage  of  honest  com- 
mon-life sounds  ;  and  the  purgatory  of  the  Enraged  Musician 
becomes  my  paradise. 

I  have  sat  at  an  oratorio  (that  profanation  of  the  purposes 
of  the  cheerful  playhouse)  watching  the  faces  of  the  auditory 
in  the  pit,  (what  a  contrast  to  Hogarth's  Laughing  Audience,) 
immoveable,  or  affecting  some  taint  emotion — till  (as  some 
have  said,  that  our  occupations  in  the  next  world  will  be  but 
a  shadow  of  what  delighted  us  in  ihis)  1  have  imagined  my- 
self in  some  cold  theatre  in  Hades,  where  some  of  the  forms 
5* 


54  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

of  the  earthly  one  should  be  kept  up,  with  none  of  the  enjoy- 
ment ;  or  like  that — 

"  Party  in  a  parlour, 
All  silent,  and  all  damned  !" 

Above  all,  those  insufferable  concertos  and  pieces  of  music, 
as  they  are  called,  do  plague  and  imbitter  my  apprehension. 
Words  are  something ;  but  to  be  exposed  to  an  endless  bat- 
tery of  mere  sounds  ;  to  be  long  a  dying  ;  to  lie  stretched 
upon  a  rack  of  roses  ;  to  keep  up  languor  by  unintermitted 
effort  ;  to  pile  honey  upon  sugar,  and  sugar  upon  honey,  to 
an  interminable  tedious  sweetness  ;  to  fill  up  sound  with  feel- 
ing, and  strain  ideas  to  keep  pace  with  it  ;  to  gaze  on  empty 
frames,  and  be  forced  to  make  the  pictures  for  yourself;  to 
read  a  book,  all  stops,  and  be  obliged  to  supply  the  verbal 
matter  ;  to  invent  extempore  tragedies  to  answer  to  the  vague 
gestures  of  an  inexplicable  rambling  mime — these  are  faint 
shadows  of  what  I  have  undergone  from  a  series  of  the  ablest- 
executed  pieces  of  this  empty  instrumental  music. 

I  deny  not,  that  in  the  opening  of  a  concert,  I  have  expe- 
rienced something  vastly  lulling  and  agreeable — afterward 
followeth  the  languor  and  the  oppression.  Like  that  disap- 
pointing book  in  Patmos  ;  or,  like  the  comings-on  of  melan- 
choly described  by  Burton,  doth  music  make  her  first  insinu- 
ating approaches  :  "  Most  pleasant  is  it  to  such  as  are  mel- 
ancholy given,  to  walk  alone  in  some  solitary  grove,  between 
wood  and  water,  by  some  brook  side,  and  to  meditate  upon 
some  delightsome  and  pleasant  subject,  which  shall  affect  him 
most,  amabilis  insania  and  mentis  gratissimus  error.  A  most 
incomparable  delight  to  build  castles  in  the  air,  to  go  smiling 
to  themselves,  acting  an  infinite  variety  of  parts,  which  they 
suppose  and  strongly  imagine  they  act,  or  that  they  see  done. 
So  delightsome  these  toys  at  first,  they  could  spend  whole 
days  and  nights  without  sleep,  even  whole  years,  in  such  con- 
templations and  fantastical  meditations,  which  are  like  so 
many  dreams,  and  will  hardly  be  drawn  from  them — winding 
and  unwinding  themselves  as  so  many  clocks,  and  still  pleas- 
ing their  humours,  until  at  last  the  scene  turns  upon  a  sud- 
den, and  they,  being  now  habited  to  such  meditations  and  sol- 
itary places,  can  endure  no  company,  can  think  of  nothing 
but  harsh  and  distasteful  subjects.  Fear,  sorrow,  suspicion, 
subrusticus  pudor,  discontent,  cares,  and  weariness  of  life, 
surprise  them  on  a  sudden,  and  they  can  tbink  of  nothing 
else:  continually  suspecting,  no  sooner  are  their  eyes  open, 
but  this  infernal   plague   of  melancholy  scizeth  on  them,  and 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  55 

terrifies  their  souls,  representing  some  dismal  object  to  their 
minds  :  which  now,  by  no  means,  no  labour,  no  persuasions 
they  can  avoid,  they  cannot  be  rid   of,    they  cannot  resist." 

Something  like  this  "  scexe-turxixg"  I  have  experienced 
at  the  evening  parties  at  the  house  of  my  good  Catholic  friend 

Nov ;   who,  by  the   aid    of  a   capital  organ,  himself  the 

most  finished  of  players,  converts  his  drawing  room  into  a 
chapel,  his  week  days  into  Sundays,  and  these  latter  into 
minor  heavens.* 

When  my  friend  commences  upon  one  of  those  solemn  an- 
thems, which  peradventure  struck  upon  my  heedless  ear 
rambling  in  the  side  aisles  of  the  dim  abbey,  some  iive-and- 
thirty  years  since,  waking  a  new  sense,  and  putting  a  soul  of 
old  religion  into  my  young  apprehension — (whether  it  be  that, 
in  which  the  psalmist,  weary  of  the  persecutions  of  bad  men, 
wisheth  to  himself  doves'  wings — or  that  other,  which,  with 
a  like  measure  of  sobriety  and  pathos,  iuquireth  by  what 
means  the  young  man  shall  best  cleanse  his  mind) — a  holy 
calm  pervadeth  me.     I  am  for  the  time 

"  Rapt  above  earth, 
And  possess  joys  not  promised  at  my  birth." 

But  when  this  master  of  the  spell,  not  content  to  have  laid 
a  soul  prostrate,  goes  on,  in  his  power,  to  inflict  more  bliss 
than  lies  in  her  capacity  to  receive — impatient  to  overcome 
her  "  earthly"  with  his  "  heavenly" — still  pouring  in,  for  pro- 
tracted hours,  fresh  waves  and  fresh  from  the  sea  of  sound, 
or  from  that  inexhausted  German  ocean,  above  which,  in  tri- 
umphant progress,  dolphin  seated,  ride  those  Arions,  Haydn 
and  Mozart,  with  their  attendant  Tritons,  Bach,  Beethoven, 
and  a  countless  tribe,  whom  to  attempt  to  reckon  up  would 
but  plunge  me  again  in  the  deeps — I  stagger  under  the  weight 
of  harmony,  reeling  to  and  fro  at  my  wit's  end  ;  clouds,  as  of 
frankincense,  oppress  me — priests,  altars,  censers,  dazzle 
before  me — the  genius  of  his  religion  hath  me  in  her  toils — a 
shadowy  triple  tiara  invests  the  brow  of  my  friend,  late  so 
naked,  so  ingenuous — he  is  pope,  and  by  him  sits,  like  as  in 
the  anomaly  of  dreams,  a  she  pope  too — tri-coroneted  like 
himself!  I  am  converted,  and  yet  a  Protestant ;  at  once 
malleus  hereticorum,  and  myself  grand  heresiarch  :  or  three 
heresies  centre  in  my  person  :  I  am  Marcion,  Ebion,  and 
Cerinthus — Gog  and  Magog — what  not? — till  the  coming  in 
of  the  friendly  supper  tray  dissipates  the  figment,  and  a  draught 

*  1  have  been  there,  and  still  would  go  ; 
'Tis  like  a  little  heaven  below. 

Dr.  Watts. 


56  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

of  true  Lutheran  beer  (in  which  chiefly  my  friend  shows  him- 
self no  bioot)  at  once  reconciles  me  to  the  rationalities  of  a 
purer  faith:  and  restores  to  me  the  genuine  unterrifying  as- 
pects of  my  pleasant-countenanced  host  and  hostess. 


ALL  FOOLS'  DAY. 

The  compliments  of  the  season  to  my  worthy  masters,  and 
a  merry  first  of  April  to  us  all  ! 

Many  happy  returns  of  this  day  to  you — and  you — and  you, 
sir — nay,  never  frown,  man,  nor  put  a  long  face  upon  the  mat- 
ter. Do  not  we  know  one  another  ?  what  need  of  ceremony 
among  friends  ?  we  have  all  a  touch  of  that  same — you  under- 
stand me — a  speck  of  the  motley.  Beshrew  the  man  who 
on  such  a  day  as  this,  the  general  festival,  should  affect  to 
stand  aloof.  I  am  none  of  those  sneakers.  I  am  free  of  the 
corporation,  and  care  not  who  knows  it.  He  that  meets  me 
in  the  forest  to  day,  shall  meet  with  no  wiseacre,  I  can  tell 
him.  Stuhus  sum.  Translate  me  that,  and  take  the  meaning 
of  it  to  yourself  for  your  pains.  What,  man,  we  have  four 
quarters  of  the  globe  on  our  side,  at  the  least  computation. 

Fill  us  a  cup  of  that  sparkling  gooseberry — we  will  drink 
no  wise,  melancholy,  politic  port  on  this  day — and  let  us  troll 
the  catch  of  Amiens — due  ad  me — due  ad  me — how  goes  it  1 

"  Here  shall  he  see 
Gross  fools  as  he." 

Now  would  I  give  a  trifle  to  know,  historically  and  authen- 
tically, who  was  the  greatest  fool  that  ever  lived.  I  would 
certainly  give  him  in  a  bumper.  Marry,  of  the  present  breed,  I 
think  I  could  without  much  difficulty  name  you  the  party. 

Remove  your  cap  a  little  farther,  if  you  please  ;  it  hides 
my  bawble.  And  now  each  man  bestride  his  hobby,  and  dust 
away  his  bells  to  what  tune  he  pleases.  I  will  give  you  for 
my  part, 

"  The  crazy  old  church  clock, 
And  the  bewildered  chimes." 

Good  master  Empedocles,  you  are  welcome.  It  is  long 
since  you  went  a  salamander  gathering  down  iEtna.  Worse 
than  samphire-picking  by  some  odds.  'Tis  a  mercy  your 
worship  did  not  singe  your  mustaches. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  57 

Ha  !  Clcombrottis  !  and  what  salads  in  faith  did  you  light 
upon  at  the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean  I  You  were  founder 
1  take  it,  of  the  disinterested  sect  of  the  Oalenturists. 

Ge.bir,  my  old  freemason,  and  prince  of  plasterers  at, Babel 
bring  in  your  trowel,  must  Am  nut  Grand  !  You  have  a  claim 
to  a  seat  here  at  my  right  hand,  as  patron  of  the  stammerers. 
You  left  your  work,  if  I  remember  Herodotus  correctly,  at 
eight  hundred  million  toises,  or  thereabout,  above  the  level 
of  the  sea.  Bless  us,  what  a  long  bell  you  must  have  polled 
to  call  your  top  workmen  to  their  nunchiou  on  the  low  grounds 
of  Sennaar.  Or  did  you  send  up  your  garlic  and  onions  by  a 
rocket  1  I  am  a  rogue  if  I  am  not  ashamed  to  show  you  our 
Monument  on  Fish-street  Hill,  after  your  altitudes.  Yet  we 
think  it  somewhat. 

What,  the  magnanimous  Alexander  in  tears  ?  cry,  baby,  put 
iis  finger,  in  its  eye,  it  shall  have  another  globe,  round  as  an 
orange,  pretty  moppet  ! 

Mister  Adams — 'odso,  I  honour  your  coat — pray  do  us  the 
favour  to  read  us  that  sermon,  which  you  lent  to  Mistress 
Slipsop — the  twenty-and-second  in  your  portmanteau  there — 
on  Female  Incontinence — the  same — it  will  come  in  most  ir- 
relevantly and  impertinently  seasonable  to  the  time  of  the  day. 

Good  Master  Raymond  Lully,  you  look  wise.  Pray  cor- 
rect that  error. 

Duns,  spare  your  definitions.  I  must  fine  you  a  bumper, 
or  a  paradox.  We  will  have  nothing  said  or  done  syllogistic- 
ally  this  day.  Remove  those  logical  forms,  waiter,  that  no 
gentleman  break  the  tender  shins  of  his  apprehension  stum- 
bling across  them. 

Master  Stephen,  you  are  late.  Ha!  Cokes,  is  it  you? 
Aguecheek,  my  dear  knight,  let  me  pay  my  devoir  to  you. 
Master  Shallow,  your  worship's  poor  servant  to  command. 
Master  Silence,  I  will  use  Pew  words  with  you.  Slender,  it 
shall  go  hard  if  I  edge  not  you  in  somewhere.  You  six  will 
engross  all  the  poor  wit  of  the  company  to-day.  1  know  it, 
1  know  it. 

Ha  !    honest    R ,   my   fine  old   librarian  of  Ludgate, 

time  out  of  mind,  art  thou  here  again  ?  Bless  thy  doublet,  it 
is  not  overnevv,  threadbare  as  thy  stories  :  what  dost  thou 
flitting  about  the  world  at  this  rate  ?  Thy  customers  are  ex- 
tinct, defunct,  bedrid,  have  ceased  to  read  long  ago.  Thou 
goest  still  among  them,  seeing  if,  prradventure,  thou  canst 
hawk  a  volume  or  two.  Good  Granville  S ,  thy  last  pa- 
tron, is  down. 

"  Kin?  Patvlion  he  is  dr.iil, 
All  thy  friends  arc  bpp'd  in  lead.*' 
C  3 


58  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.. 

Nevertheless,  noble  R ,  come  in,  and  take  your  seat 

here,  between  Armado  and  Quisada ;  for  in  true  courtesy,  in 
gravity,  in  fantastic  smiling  to  thyself,  in  courteous  smiling 
upon  others,  in  the  goodly  ornature  of  well-apparelled  speech, 
and  the  commendation  of  wise  sentences,  thou  art  nothing  in- 
ferior to  those  accomplished  dons  of  Spain.  The  spirit  of 
chivalry  forsake  me  for  ever,  when  I  forget  thy  singing  the 
song  of  Macheath,  which  declares  that  he  might  be  happy 
with  either,  situated  between  those  two  ancient  spinsters — 
when  I  forget  the  inimitable  formal  love  which  thou  didst 
make,  turning  now  to  the  one,  and  now  to  the  other,  with  that 
Malvolian  smile — as  if  Cervantes,  not  Gay,  had  written  it  for 
his  hero  ;  and  as  if  thousands  of  periods  must  revolve,  be- 
fore the  mirror  of  courtesy  could  have  given  his  invidious 
preference  between  a  pair  of  so  goodly-propertied  and  meri- 
torious-equal damsels. 

To  descend  from  these  altitudes,  and  not  to  protract  our  Fools' 
Banquet  beyond  its  appropriate  day — for  I  fear  the  second  of 
April  is  not  many  hours  distant — in  sober  verity  I  will  confess 
a  truth  to  thee,  reader.  I  love  a  fool — as  naturally  as  if  [ 
were  a  kith  and  kin  to  him.  When  a  child,  with  childlike 
apprehensions,  that  dived  not  below  the  surface  of  the  matter, 
I  read  those  parables — not  guessing  at  their  involved  wisdom 
— I  had  more  yearnings  towards  that  simple  architect,  that 
built  his  house  upon  the  sand,  than  I  entertained  for  his  more 
cautious  neighbour  ;  I  grudged  at  the  hard  censure  pronounced 
upon  the  quiet  soul  that  kept  his  talent ;  and — prizing  their 
simplicity  beyond  the  more  provident,  and,  to  my  apprehen- 
sion, somewhat  unfeminme  wariness  of  their  competitors — I 
felt  a  kindliness,  that  almost  amounted  to  a  tendre,  for  those 
five  thoughtless  virgins.  I  have  never  made  an  acquaintance 
since  that  lasted,  or  a  friendship  that  answered,  with  any 
that  had  not  some  tincture  of  the  absurd  in  their  characters. 
I  venerate  an  honest  obliquity  of  understanding.  The  more 
laughable  blunders  a  man  shall  commit  in  your  company,  the 
more  tests  he  giveth  you,  that  he  will  not  betray  or  overrent  h 
you.  I  love  the  safety,  which  a  palpable  hallucination  war- 
rants ;  the  security,  which  a  word  out  of  season  ratifies.  And 
take  my  word  for  this,  reader,  and  say  a  fool  told  it  you,  if 
you  please,  that  he  who  hath  not,  a  drachm  of  lollv  in  his  mix- 
ture, hath  pounds  of  much  worse  matter  in  his  composition. 
It  is  observed,  "  that  the  foolisher  the  fowl  or  fish — wood- 
cocks, dotterels,  codsheads,  &c,  the  finer  the  flesh  thereof," 
and  what  are  commonly  the  world's  received  fools,  but  such 
whereof  the  world  13  not  worthy  ?  and  what  have  been  some 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  59 

of  the  kindliest  patterns  of  our  species,  but  so  many  darlings 
of  absurdity,  minions  of  the  goddess,  and  her  white  boys  1 
Reader,  if  you  wrest  my  words  beyond  their  fair  construction, 
it  is  you,  and  not  I,  that  are  the  April  Fool. 


A   QUAKER    MEETING. 

stillborn  silence!  thou  that  art 

Floodgate  of  the  deeper  heart ! 

Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind  ! 

Frost  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind ! 

Secrecy's  confidant,  and  he 

Who  makes  religion  mystery  ! 

Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue  \ 

Leave,  thy  desert  shades  among, 

Reverend  hermit's  hallowed  cells, 

Where  retired  devotion  dwells ! 

With  thy  enthusiasms  come, 

Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb  !* 

Reader,  wouldst  thou  know  what  true  peace  and  quiet 
mean  ;  wouldst  thou  find  a  refuge  from  the  noises  and  clam- 
ours of  the  multitude  ;  wouldst  thou  enjoy  at  once  solitude 
and  society  ;  wouldst  thou  possess  the  depth  of  thine  own 
spirit  in  stillness,  without  being  shut  out  from  the  consol- 
atory faces  of  thy  species  ;  wouldst  thou  be  alone,  and  yet 
accompanied ;  solitary,  yet  not  desolate ;  singular,  yet  not 
without  some  to  keep  thee  in  countenance  ;  a  unit  in  aggre- 
gate ;  a  simple  in  composite  :  come  with  me  into  a  Quaker 
meeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "  before  the  winds  were 
made,"  go  not  out  into  the  wilderness,  descend  not  into  the 
profundities  of  the  earth  ;  shut  not  up  thy  casements  ;  nor 
pour  wax  into  the  little  cells  of  thine  ears,  with  little-faithed, 
srlf-mistrusting  Ulysses.  Retire  with  me  into  a  Quaker 
meeting. 

For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words,  and  to  hold 
his  peace,  it  is  commendable ;  but  for  a  multitude,  it  is  great 
mastery. 

What  is  the  slillm >s  ofthe  desert  compared  with  this  place  ? 
what  the  uncotamuriicating  muteness  of  fishes  !  here  the  god- 
dess refgjas  and  revels.  "  Boreas,  and  Cecias,  and  Argestcs 
loud,"  do  not  with  tin  ir  intern founding  uproars  more  sag 

*  Froca  *  Poems  of  ail  Sorts,"  by  Richard  Flcckno,  1653. 


GO  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

ment  the  brawl — nor  the  waves  of  the  blown  Baltic  with  their 
clubbed  sounds — than  their  opposite  (Silence  her  sacred  self) 
is  multiplied  and  rendered  more  intense  by  numbers,  and 
by  sympathy.  She  too  hath  her  deeps,  that  call  unto  deeps. 
Negation  itself  hath  a  positive  more  and  less  !  and  closed 
eyes  would  seem  to  obscure  the  great  obscurity  of  midnight. 

There  are  wounds  which  an  imperfect  solitude  cannot  heal. 
By  imperfect  I  mean  that  which  a  man  enjoy eth  by  himself. 
The  perfect  is  that  which  he  can  sometimes  attain  in  crowds, 
but  nowhere  so  absolutely  as  in  a  Quaker  meeting.  Those 
first  hermits  did  certainly  understand  this  principle,  when  they 
retired  into  Egyptian  solitudes,  not  singly,  but  in  shoals,  to 
enjoy  one  another's  want  of  conversation.  The  Carthusian 
is  bound  to  his  brethren  by  his  agreeing  spirit  of  uncommuni- 
cativeness.  In  secular  occasions,  what  so  pleasant  as  to  be 
reading  a  book  through  a  long  winter  evening,  with  a  friend 
sitting  by — say  a  wife — he,  or  she,  too,  (if  that  be  probable,) ' 
reading  another,  without  interruption, or  oral  communication? 
can  there  be  no  sympathy  without  the  gabble  of  words  ?  away 
with  this  inhuman,  shy,  single,  shade  and  cavern  haunting 
solitariness.  Give  me,  Master  Zimmerman,  a  symphathetic 
solitude. 

To  pace  alone  in  the  cloisters  or  side  aisles  of  some  ca- 
thedral, time  stricken — 

"  Or  under  hanging  mountains, 
Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains" — 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that  which  those  enjoy 
who  come  together  for  the  purposes  of  more  complete,  ab- 
stracted solitude.  This  is  the  loneliness  "  to  be  felt."  The 
Abbey  Church  of  Westminster  hath  nothing  so  solemn,  so 
spirit,  soothing,  as  the  naked  walls  and  benches  of  a  Quaker 
meeting.     Here  are  no  tombs,  no  inscriptions — 

"  Sands,  ignoble  things 
Dropped  from  the  ruined  sides  of  kings" — 

but  here  is  something  which  throws  Antiquity  herself  into 
the  foreground — Silence — eldest  of  things — -language  of  old 
ISight — primitive  discourser— to  which  the  insolent  decays  of 
mouldering  grandeur  have  but  arrived  by  a  violent  and,  as  we 
may  say,  unnatural  progression . 

"  How  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity  !'' 

Nothing-plotting,  naught-caballing,  unmischievous  synod  ! 
convocation  without  intrigue!  parliament  without  debate! 
what  a  lesson  dost  thou  read  to  council  and  to  consistory  !  if 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  61 

my  pen  treat  of  you  lightly — as  haply  it  will  wander — yet  my 
spirit  hath  gravely  felt  the  wisdom  of  your  custom,  when  sit- 
ting among  you  in  deepest  peace,  which  some  outwelling 
tears  would  rather  confirm  than  disturb;  I  have  reverted  to  the 
times  of  your  beginnings,  and  the  sowings  of  the  seed  by 
Fox  and  Dewsbury.  1  have  witnessed  that  which  brought 
before  my  eyes  your  heroic  tranquillity,  indexible  to  the  rude 
jests  and  serious  violences  of  the  insolent  soldiery,  republican 
or  royalist,  sent  to  molest  you — for  ye  sat  between  the  fires 
of  two  persecutions,  the  outcast  and  oilscouring  of  church  and 
presbytery.  I  have  seen  the  reeling  sea  ruffian,  who  had 
wandered  into  your  receptacle,  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
disturbing  your  quiet,  from  the  very  spirit  of  the  place  receive 
in  a  moment  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit  among  ye  as  a 
lamb  amid  lambs.  And  I  remember  Penn  before  his  accu- 
sers, and  Fox  in  the  bail  dock,  where  he  was  lifted  up  in 
spirit-,  as  he  tells  us,  and  "the judge  and  the  jury  became  as 
dead  men  under  his  feet." 

Reader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I  would  recom- 
mend to  you,  above  all  church  narratives,  to  read "Se well's 
History  of  the  Quakers.  It  is  in  folio,  and  is  the  abstract  of 
the  journals  of  Fox  and  the  primitive  Friends.  It  is  far  more 
edifying  and  affecting  than  anything  you  will  read  of  Wesley 
and  his  colleagues.  Here  is  nothing  to  stagger  vuu,  nothing 
to  make  you  mistrust,  no  suspicion  of  alloy,  no  drop  or  dreg 
of  the  worldly  or  ambitious  spirit.  You  will  here  read  the 
true  story  of  that  much-injured,  ridiculed  man,  (who,  perhaps, 
hath  been  a  byword  in  your  mouth,)  James  Naylor  :  what 
dreadful  sufferings  with  what  patience  he  endured,  even  to  the 
boring  through  of  his  tongue  with  red-hot  irons  without  a 
murmur  ;  and  with  what  strength  of  mind,  when  the  delusion 
lie  had  fallen  into,  which  they  stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had 
given  way  to  clearer  thoughts,  he  could  renounce  his  error,  in 
a  strain  of  the  beaulifullesthunnlitv,  yet  keep  his  first  grounds, 
and  be  a  Quaker  still  ! — so  different  from  the  practice  of  your 
common  converts  from  enthusiasm,  who,  when  they  aposta- 
tize, apostatize  all,  and  think  they  can  never  get  far  enough 
from  the  society  of  their  former  errors,  even  to  the  renuncia- 
tion of  some  saving  truths,  with  which  they  had  been  min- 
gleck,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart  j  and  love  the 
early  Quakers. 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in  our  days  have 
kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or  in  what  proportion  they  have 
substituted  formality  for  it,  the  Judge  of  spirits  can  alone  de- 
termine. I  have  seen  faces  in  their  assemblies,  upon  which 
6 


62  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  dove  sat  visibly  brooding.  Others  again  I  have  -watched, 
when  my  thoughts  should  have  been  better  engaged,  in  which 
I  could  possibly  detect  nothing  but  a  blank  inanity.  But  quiet 
was  in  all,  and  the  disposition  to  unanimity,  and  the  absence 
of  the  fierce  controversial  workings.  If  the  spiritual  preten- 
sions of  the  Quakers  have  abated,  at  least  they  make  few 
pretences.  Hypocrites  they  certainly  are  not  in  their  preach- 
ing. It  is  seldom  indeed  that  you  shall  see  one  get  up  among 
them  to  hold  forth.  Only  now  and  then  a  trembling  female, 
generally  ancient,  voice  is  heard — you  cannot  guess  from 
Avhat  part  of  the  meeting  it  proceeds — with  a  low,  buzzing, 
musical  sound,  laying  out  a  few  words  which  "  she  thought 
might  suit  the  condition  of  some  present,"  with  a  quaking  dif- 
fidence, which  leaves  no  possibility  of  supposing  that  any- 
thing of  female  vanity  was  mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were 
so  full  of  tenderness  and  a  restraining  modesty.  The  men, 
for  what  I  have  observed,  speak  seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  witnessed  a 
sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It  was  a  man  of  giant 
stature,  who,  as  Wordsworth  phrases  it,  might  have  danced, 
"  from  head  to  foot  equipped  in  iron  mail."  His  frame  was 
of  iron  too.  But  he  was  malleable.  I  saw  him  shake  all  over 
with  the  spirit — I  dare  not  say,  of  delusion.  The  strivings  of 
the  outer  man  were  unutterable — he  seemed  not  to  speak, 
but  to  be  spoken  from.  I  saw  the  strong  man  bowed  down,  and 
his  knees  to  fail — his  joints  all  seemed  loosening — it  was  a 
figure  to  off  set  against  Paul  preaching — the  words  he  uttered 
were  few,  and  sound — he  was  evidently  resisting  his  will — 
keeping  down  his  own  word  wisdom  with  more  mighty  effort 
than  the  world's  orators  strain  for  theirs.  "  He  had  been  a 
wit  in  his  youth,"  he  told  us,  with  expressions  of  a  sober  re- 
morse. And  it  was  not  till  long  after  the  impression  had 
begun  to  wear  away,  that  I  was  enabled,  with  something  like 
a  smile,  to  recall  the  striking  incongruity  of  the  confession — 
understanding  the  term  in  its  worldly  acceptation — with  the 
frame  and  physiognomy  of  the  person  before  me.  His  brow 
would  have  scared  away  the  levities — the  Jocos  Risus-que 
— faster  than  the  Loves  lied  the  face  of  Dis  at  Enna.  By 
wit,  even  in  his  youth,  I  will  be  sworn  he  understood  some- 
thing far  within  the  limits  of  an  allowable  liberty.. 

More  frequently  the  meeting  is  broken  up  without  a  word 
having  been  spoken.  But  the  mind  has  been  fed.  You  go 
away  with  a  sermon  not  made  with  hands.  You  have  been 
in  the  milder  caverns  of  Trophonius ;  or  as  in  some  den, 
where  that  fiercest  and  savagost,  of  all  wild  creatures,  tin- 
ToNGUt,  that  unruly  member,  has  strangely  lain  lied  up  and 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  C3 

captive.  You  have  bathed  wiih  stillness.  Oh  when  the 
spirit  is  sore  fretted,  even  tired  to  sickness  of  the  janglings 
and  nonsense  noises  of  the  world,  what  a  balm  and  a  solace  it 
is  to  go  and  seat  yourself,  for  a  quiet  half  hour,  upon  some 
undisputed  corner  of  a  bench,  among  the  gentle  Quakers  ! 

Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,  present  an  uniformity, 
tranquil  and  herdlike — as  in  the  pasture — "forty  feeding  like 
one." 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapable  of  receiv- 
ing a  soil ;  and  cleanliness  in  them  to  be  something  more  than 
the  absence  of  its  contrary.  Every  Quakeress  is  a  lily  :  and 
when  they  come  up  in  bands  to  their  Whitsun  conferences, 
whitening  the  easterly  streets  of  the  metropolis,  from  all  parts 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  they  show  like  troops  of  the  sinning 
ones. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

My  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory  and  immethod- 
ical.  Odd,  out  of  the  way,  old  English  plays  and  treatises, 
have  supplied  me  with  most  of  my  notions  and  ways  of  feel- 
ing. In  everything  that  relates  to  science,  I  am  a  whole 
encyclopaedia  behind  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  should  have 
scarcely  cut  a  figure  among  the  Franklins,  or  country  gentle- 
men in  King  John's  days.  I  know  less  geography  than  a 
schoolboy  of  six  weeks'  standing.  To  me  a  map  of  old  Or- 
telius  is  as  authentic  as  Arrowsmith.  I  do  not  know  where- 
about Africa  merges  into  Asia;  whether  Ethiopia  lie  in  one 
or  other  of  those  great  divisions  ;  nor  can  form  the  remotest 
conjecture  of  the  position  of  New  South  Wales,  or  Van  Die- 
uicii's  Land.  Yet  do  I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very 
dear  friend  in  the  first  named  of  these  two  terra  incognita?. 
1  have  no  astronomv.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  tin? 
Bear,  or  Charles's  Wain  ;  the  place  of  any  star;  or  the  name 
of  any  of  them  at  sight.  I  guess  at  Venus  only  by  her  bright- 
ness ;  and  if  the  sun  on  some  portentous  morn  were  to  make 
his  first  appearance  in  the  west,  I  verily  believe,  that  while 
all  the  world  were  gasping  in  apprehension  about  me,  I  alone 
should  stand  untt  rritied.  from  sheer  incuriosity  and  want  of  ob- 
servation. Of  history  and  chronology  I  possess  dome  vague 
points,  such  as  one  cannot  help  picking  up  in  the  course  of 
miscellaneous  study ;  but  1  never  deliberately  sat  down  to  a 


64  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

chronicle,  even  of  my  own  country.  I  have  most  dim  appre- 
hensions of  the  four  great  monarchies  ;  and  sometimes  the 
Assyrian,  sometimes  the  Persian,  floats  as  first  in  my  far  cy. 
I  make  the  widest  conjectures  concerning  Egypt,  and  her 
shepherd  kings.  My  friend  31.,  with  great  painstaking,  got 
me  to  think  I  understood  the  first  proposition  in  Euclid,  but 
gave  me  over  in  despair  at  the  second.  I  am  entirely  unac- 
quainted with  the  modern  languages  ;  and,  like  a  better  man 
than  myself,  have  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek."  I  am  a 
stranger  to  the  shapes  and  texture  of  the  commonest  trees, 
herbs,  flowers — not  from  the  circumstance  of  my  being  town 
born  ;  for  I  should  have  brought  the  same  unobservant  spirit 
into  the  world  with  me,  had  I  first  seen  it  "  on  Devon's  leafy 
shores,"  and  am  no  less  at  a  loss  among  purely  town  objects, 
tools,  engines,  mechanical  processes.  Not  that  I  affect  igno- 
rance ;  but  my  head  has  not  many  mansions,  nor  spacious  ; 
and  I  have  been  obliged  to  fill  it  with  such  cabinet  curiosities 
as  it  can  hold  without  aching.  I  sometimes  wonder  how  I 
have  passed  my  probation  with  so  little  discredit  in  the  world, 
as  I  have  done,  upon  so  meager  a  stock.  But  the  fact  is,  a 
man  may  do  very  well  with  a  very  little  knowledge,  and  scarce 
be  found  out,  in  mixed  company  ;  everybody  is  so  much 
more  ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to  call  for  a  display  of 
your  acquisitions.  But  in  a  tete-a-tete  there  is  no  shuffling. 
The  truth  will  out.  There  is  nothing  which  I  dread  so  much 
as  the  being  left  alone  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  a  sensible, 
well-informed  man,  who  does  not  know  me.  I  lately  got  into 
a  dilemma  of  this  sort. 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishopsgate  and  Shack- 
lewell,  the  coach  stopped  to  take  up  a  staid-looking  gentle- 
man, about  the  wrong  side  of  thirty,  who  was  giving  his  part- 
ing directions,  (while  the  steps  were  adjusting,)  in  a  tone  of 
mild  authority,  to  a  tall  youth,  who  seemed  to  be  neither  his 
clerk,  his  son,  nor  his  servant,  but  something  partaking  of  all 
three.  The  youth  was  dismissed,  and  we  drove  on.  As  we 
were  the  sole  passengers,  he  naturally  enough  addressed  his 
conversation  to  me  ;  and  we  discussed  the  merits  of  the  laic, 
the  civility  and  punctuality  of  the  driver  ;  the  circumstance 
of  an  opposition  coach  having  been  lately  set  up,  with  the 
probabilities  of  its  success — to  all  which  I  was  enabled  to  re- 
turn pretty  satisfactory  answers,  having  been  drilled  into  tins 
kind  of  etiquette  by  some  years' daily  practice  of  riding  to  and 
fro  in  tin:  stage  aforesaid,  when  he  suddenly  alarmed  me  by  a 
startling  question,  whether  I  had  seen  the  show  of  prize  cat- 
tle that  morning  in  Sinithlit dd.  JNow  as  I  had  not  seen  it, 
and  do  not  greatly  care  for  such  sort  of  exhibitions,  I  was 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  65 

obliged  to  return  a  cold  negative.  He  seemed  a  little  morti- 
fied, as  well  as  astonished,  a!  my  declaration,  as  (it  appeared) 
be  was  just  come  fresh  from  the  sight,  and  doubtless  had 
hoped  to  compare  notes  on  the  subject.  However,  he  assured 
me  that  I  had  lost  a  line  treat,  as  it  far  exceeded  the  show  of 
last  year.  We  were  now  approaching  Norton  Falgate,  when 
the  sight  of  some  shop  goods  ticketed  freshened  him  up  into 
a  dissertation  upon  the  cheapness  of  cottons  this  spring.  I 
was  now  a  little  in  heart,  as  the  nature  of  my  morning  avoca- 
tions' had  brought  me  into  some  sort  of  familiarity  with  the 
raw  material ;  and  I  was  surprised  to  find  how  eloquent  I  was 
becoming  on  the  slate  of  tin-  India  market,  when,  presently* 
he  dashed  mv  incipient  vanity  to  the  earth  at  once,  by  inqui* 
ring  whether  I  had  ever  made  any  calculation  as  to  the  value 
of  the  rental  of  all  the  retail  shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked 
of  me  what  song  the  Sirens  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles 
assumed  when  he  hid  himself  among  women.  1  might,  with 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  have  hazarded  a  "  wide  solution."* 
My  companion  saw  my  embarrassment,  andthealmshousesbe- 
yond  Shoreditch  just  coming  in  view,  with  great  good  nature 
and  dexterity  shifted  his  conversation  to  the  subject  of  public 
charities  ;  which  led  to  the  comparative  merits  of  provision 
for  the  poor  in  past  and  present  times,  with  observations  on 
the  old  monastic  institutions  and  charitable  orders — but  find- 
ing me  rather  dimly  impressed  with  some  glimmering  notions 
from  old  poetic  associations,  than  strongly  fortified  with  any 
speculations  reducible  to  calculation  on  the  subject,  he  gave 
the  matter  up  ;  and  the  country  beginning  to  open  more  and 
more  upon  us  as  we  approached  the  turnpike  at  Kingsland, 
(the  destined  termination  of  his  journey,)  he  put  a  home  thrust 
upon  me,  in  the  most  unfortunate  position  he  could  have 
chosen,  by  advancing  some  queries  relative  to  the  North  Pole 
Expedition.  While  1  was  muttering  out  something  about  the 
panorama  of  those  strange  regions,  (which  1  had  actually  seen,) 
by  way  of  parrying  the  question,  the  coach  stopping  relieved 
me  from  any  further  apprehensions.  My  companion  getting 
out,  left  me  in  the  comfortable  possession  of  my  ignorance  ; 
and  I  heard  him,  as  he  went  off,  putting  questions  to  an  out- 
side passenger,  who  had  alighted  with  him,  regarding  an  epi- 
demic disorder,  that  had  been  rife  about  Dalston  ;  and  which, 
my  friend  assured  him,  had  gone  through  five  or  six  schools 
in  that  neighbourhood.  The  truth  now  Hashed  upon  me.  that 
my  companion  was  a  schoolmaster  ;  and  that  the  youth,  whom 
he  had  parted  from  at  our  first  acquaintance,  must  have  been 

*  Urn  Burial. 


66  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

one  of  the  bigger  boys,  or  the  usher.  He  was  evidently  a 
kind-hearted  man,  who  did  not  seem  so  much  desirous  of 
provoking  discussion  by  the  questions  which  he  put,  as  of  ob- 
taining information  at  any  rate.  It  did  not  appear  that  he 
took  any  interest,  either,  in  such  kind  of  inquiries,  for  their 
own  sake  ;  but  that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to  seek  for 
knowledge.  A  greenish-coloured  coat  which  he  had  on  for- 
bade me  to  surmise  that  he  was  a  clergyman.  The  adventure 
gave  birth  to  some  reflections  on  the  difference  between  per- 
sons of  his  profession  in  past  and  present  times. 

Rest  to  the  souls  of  those  fine  old  pedagogues — the  breed, 
long  since  extinct,  of  the  Lilys  and  the  Linacres — who,  be- 
lieving that  all  learning  was  contained  in  the  languages  which 
they  taught,  and  despising  every  other  acquirement  as  super- 
ficial and  useless,  came  to  their  task  as  to  a  sport  !  Passing 
from  infancy  to  age,  they  dreamed  away  all  their  days  as  in 
a  grammar  school.  Revolving  in  a  perpetual  cycle  of  declen- 
sions, conjugations,  syntaxes,  and  prosodies  ;  renewing  con- 
stantly the  occupations  which  had  charmed  their  studious 
childhood  ;  rehearsing  continually  the  part  of  the  past ;  life 
must  have  slipped  from  them  at  last  like  one  day.  They 
were  always  in  their  first  garden,  reaping  harvest  of  their 
golden  time,  among  their  Flori  and  their  Spicilegia ;  in  Arca- 
dia still,  but  kings  ;  the  ferule  of  their  sway  not  much  harsher, 
but  of  like  dignity  with  that  mild  sceptre  attributed  to  King 
Basileus  ;  the  Greek  and  Latin,  their  stately  Pamela  and 
their  Philoclea ;  with  the  occasional  duncery  of  some  unto- 
ward tyro,  serving  for  the  refreshing  interlude  of  a  Mopsa,  or 
a  clown  Damaetas  ! 

With  what  a  savour  doth  the  preface  to  Colet's,  or  (as  it  is 
sometimes  called)  Paul's  Accidence,  set  forth  !  "  To  exhort 
every  man  to  the  learning  of  grammar,  that  intendeth  to  at- 
tain the  understanding  of  the  tongues,  wherein  is  contained  a 
great  treasury  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  it  would  seem  but 
vain  and  lost  labour  ;  for  so  much  as  it  is  known,  that  nothing 
can  surely  be  ended,  whose  beginning  is  either  feeble  or 
faulty  ;  and  no  building  be  perfect,  whereof  the  foundation 
ajad  groundwork  are  ready  to  fall,  and  unable  to  uphold  the 
burden  of  the  frame."  How  well  doth  this  stately  preamble 
(comparable  to  those  which  Milton  commendeth  as  "  having 
been  the  usage  to  prefix  to  some  solemn  law,  then  first  pro- 
mulgated by  Solon  or  Lycurgus")  correspond  with  and  illus- 
trate that  pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed  in  a  succeeding 
•  lausc,  which  would  fence  about  grammar  rules  with  the  se- 
verity of  faith  articles  ! — "  as  for  the  diversity  of  grammars,  it 
is  well  profitably  taken  away  by  the  king  majesty's  wisdom, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  67 

who,  foreseeing  the  inconvenience,  and  favourably  providing  the 
remedv,  caused  one  kind  of  grammar  by  sundry  learned  men 
to  be  diligently  drawn,  and  so  to  be  set  out,  only  everywhere 
to  be  taught  lor  the  use  of  learners, and  for  the  hurt  in  chang- 
ing of  schoolmasters."  What  a  fVMo  in  that  which  follows  ; 
"  wherein  it  is  profitable  that  he  (the  pupil)  can  orderly  de- 
cline his  noun  and  his  verb."     His  noun  ! 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast ;  and  the  least  coacern 
of  a  teacher  in  the  present  day  is  to  inculcate  grammar  rules. 

The  modern  schoolmaster  is  expected  to  know  a  little  of 
everything,  because  his  pupil  is  required  not  to  be  entirely 
ignorant  of  anything.  He  must  be  superficially,  if  I  may  so 
say,  omniscient.  He  is  to  know  something  of  pneumatics  ; 
of  chvmistry  :  of  whatever  is  curious,  or  proper  to  excite  the 
attention  of  tlie  youthful  mind  ;  an  insight  into  mechanics  is 
desirable,  with  a  touch  of  statistics  ;  the  quality  of  soils,  <fcc, 
botany,  the  constitution  of  his  country,  cum  multis  aliis.  You 
may  get  a  notion  of  some  part  of  his  expected  duties  by  con- 
sulting the  famous  Tractate  on  Education,  addressed  to  Mr. 
Hartlib. 

All  these  things — these,  or  the  desire  of  them — he  is  ex- 
pected to  instil,  not  by  set  lessons  from  professors,  which  he 
may  charge  in  the  bill,  but  at  school  intervals,  as  he  walks 
the  streets,  or  saunters  through  green  fields,  (those  natural 
instructers,)  with  his  pupils.  The  least  part  of  what  is  ex- 
pected from  him,  is  to  be  done  in  school  hours.  He  must 
insinuate  knowledge  at  the  mollia  tempora  fandi.  He  must 
seize  every  occasion — the  season  of  the  year  ;  the  time  of 
the  day ;  a  passing  cloud  ;  a  rainbow  ;  a  wagon  of  hay  ;  a 
regiment  of  soldiers  going  by — to  inculcate  something  useful. 
He  can  receive  no  pleasure  from  a  casual  glimpse  of  nature, 
but  must  catch  at  it  as  an  object  of  instruction.  He  must  in- 
terpret beauty  into  the  picturesque.  He  cannot  relish  a  beg- 
gar  man  or  a  gipsy,  for  thinking  of  the  suitable  improvement. 
Nothing  comes  to  him  not  spoiled  by  the  sophisticating 
medium  of  moral  uses.  The  universe — that  great  book,  as 
it  has  been  called — is  to  him  indeed,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, a  book,  out  of  which  he  is  doomed  to  read  tedious 
homilies  to  distasting  schoolhoys.  Vacations  themselves  are 
none  to  him,  he  is  only  rather  worse  off  than  before  ;  for 
commonly  he  has  some  intrusive  upper  boy  fastened  upon 
him  at  such  times  ;  some  cadet  of  a  great  family  ;  soiru  neg- 
lected lump  of  nobility  or  gentry,  that  he  must  drag  alter  him 
to  the  plav,  to  the  Panorama,  to  Mr.  Hartley's  Orrery,  to  the 
Panopticon,  or  into  the  country,  to  a  friend's  house,  or  his 
favourite   watering  place.     Wherever   he    goes,  this  uneasy 


68  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

shadow  attends  him.  A  boy  is  at  his  board,  and  in  his  path, 
and  in  all  his  movements.  He  is  boy  rid,  sick  of  perpetual 
boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way,  among  their 
mates  ;  but  they  are  unwholesome  companions  for  grown 
people.  The  restraint  is  felt  no  less  on  the  one  side  than 
on  the  other.  E.ven  a  child,  that  "  plaything  for  an  hour," 
tires  always.  The  noises  of  children,  playing  their  own 
fancies — as  I  now  hearken  to  them  by  fits,  sporting  on  the 
green  before  my  window,  while  I  am  engaged  in  these  grave 
speculations  at  my  neat  suburban  retreat  at  Shacklewell — by 
distance  made  more  sweet — inexpressibly  take  from  the  labour 
of  my  task.  It  is  like  writing  to  music.  They  seem  to  mod- 
ulate my  periods.  They  ought  at  least  to  do  so — for  in  the 
voice  of  that  tender  age  there  is  a  kind  of  poetry,  far  unlike 
the  harsh  prose  accents  of  man's  conversation.  I  should  but 
spoil  their  sport,  and  diminish  my  own  sympathy  for  them,  by 
mingling  in  their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days,  with  a  person  of 
very  superior  capacity  to  my  own — not,  if  I  know  myself  at 
all,  from  any  considerations  of  jealousy  or  self-comparison,  for 
the  occasional  communion  with  such  minds  has  constituted 
the  fortune  and  felicity  of  my  life  ;  but  the  habit  of  too  con- 
stant intercourse  with  spirits  above  you,  instead  of  raising 
you,  keeps  you  down.  Too  frequent  doses  of  original  think- 
ing from  others,  restrain  what  lesser  portion  of  that  faculty' 
you  may  possess  of  your  own.  You  get  entangled  in  an- 
other man's  mind,  even  as  you  lose  yourself  in  another  man's 
grounds.  You  are  walking  with  a  tall  varlet,  whose  strides 
outpace  yours  to  lassitude.  The  constant  operation  of  such 
potent  agency  would  reduce  me,  I  am  convinced,  to  imbecility. 
You  may  derive  thoughts  from  others  ;  your  way  of  thinking, 
the  mould  in  which  your  thoughts  are  cast,  must  be  your 
own.  Intellect  may  be  imparted,  but  not  each  man's  intel- 
lectual frame. 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus  dragged  up- 
ward, as  little  (or  rather  still  less)  is  it  desirable  to  be  stunted 
downward,  by  your  associates.  The  trumpet  does  not  more 
stun  you  by  its  loudness,  than  a  whisper  teases  you  by  its 
provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the  presence  of  a 
schoolmaster  1 — because  we  are  conscious  that  he  is  not  quite 
at  his  ease  in  ours.  He  is  awkward  and  out  of  place  in  the  so- 
ciety of  his  equals.  He  comes  like  Gulliver  from  among  his 
little  people,  and  he  cannot  fit  the  stature  of  his  understanding 
to  yours.     He  cannot  meet  you  on  the  square.     He  wants  a 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  09 

point  given  him,  like  an  indifferent  whistplayer.  He  is  so 
used  to  teaching,  that  he  wants  to  be  teaching  you.  One  of 
these  professors,  upon  my  complaining  that  these  little  sketches 
of  mine  were  anything  but  methodical,  and  that  I  was  unable 
to  make  them  otherwise,  kindly  offered  to  instruct  me  in  the 
method  by  which  young  gentlemen  in  his  seminary  were 
taught  to  compose  English  themes.  The  jests  of  a  school- 
master are  coarse,  or  thin.  They  do  not  fell  out  of  school. 
lie  is  under  the  restraint  of  a  formal  and  didactive  hypocrisy 
in  company,  as  a  clergyman  is  under  a  moral  one.  He  can 
no  more  let  his  intellect  loose  in  society,  than  the  other  can 
his  inclinations.  He  is  forlorn  among  his  coevals  ;  his  juniors 
cannot  be  his  friends. 

"  I  take  blame  to  myself,''  said  a  sensible  man  of  this  pro- 
fession, writing  to  a  friend  respecting  a  youth  who  had  quitted 
his  school  abruptly,  "  that  your  nephew  was  hot  more  attached 
to  me.  But  persons  in  my  situation  are  more  to  be  pitied 
than  can  well  be  imagined.  We  are  surrounded  by  young, 
and,  consequently,  ardently  affectionate  hearts,  but  we  can 
never  hope  to  share  an  atom  of  their  affections.  The  relation 
of  master  and  scholar  forbids  this.  How  pleasing  this  must 
be  to  you,  how  I  envy  your  feelings,  my  friends  will  sometimes 
say  to  me,  when  they  see  young  men,  whom  I  have  educated, 
return  after  some  years  absence  from  school,  their  eyes  shi- 
ning with  pleasure,  while  they  shake  hands  with  their  old 
master,  bringing  a  present  of  game  to  me,  or  a  toy  to  my 
wife,  and  thanking  me  in  the  warmest  terms  for  my  care  of 
their  education.  A  holyday  is  begged  for  the  boys,  the  house 
is  a  scene  of  happiness.  I,  only,  am  sad  at  heart.  This 
fine-spirited  and  warm-hearted  youth,  who  fancies  he  repays 
his  master  with  gratitude  for  the  care  of  his  boyish  years — 
this  young  man,  in  the  eight  long  years  I  watched  over  him 
with  a  parent's  anxiety,  never  could  repay  me  with  one  look 
of  genuine  feeling.  He  was  proud  when  I  praised  ;  he  was 
submissive  when  I  reproved  him  ;  but  he  did  never  love  me — 
and  what  he  now  mistakes  for  gratitude  and  kindness  for  me, 
is  but  the  pleasant  sensation  which  all  persons  feel  at  revisit- 
ing the  scene  of  their  boyish  hopes  and  fears  ;  and  the  see- 
ing on  equal  terms  the  man  they  were  accustomed  to  look  up 
to  with  reverence.  My  wife,  too,"  this  interesting  corre- 
spondent goes  on  to  say,  "  my  once  darling  Anna,  is  the  wife 
of  a  schoolmaster.  When  I  married  her — knowing  that  the 
wife  of  a  schoolmaster  ought  to  be  a  busy  notable  creature, 
and  fearing  that  mv  gentle  Anna  would  ill  supply  the  loss  of 
my  dear  bustling  mother,  just  then  dead,  who  never  sat  still, 
was  in  every  part  of  the  house  in  a  moment,  and  whom  I  was 


70  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

obliged  sometimes  to  threaten  to  fasten  down  in  a  chair,  to 
save  her  from  fatiguing  herself  to  death — 1  expressed  my  fears, 
that  I  was  bringing  her  into  a  way  of  life  unsuitable  to  her ; 
and  she,  who  loved  me  tenderly,  promised,  for  my  sake,  to 
exert  herself  to  perform  the  duties  of  her  new  situation.  She 
promised,  and  she  has  kept  her  word.  What  wonders  will 
not  woman's  love  perform  ?  My  house  is  managed  with  a 
decorum  unknown  in  other  schools,  my  boys  are  well  fed, 
look  healthy,  and  have  every  proper  accommodation  ;  and  all 
this  performed  with  a  careful  economy,  that  never  descends 
to  meanness.  But  I  have  lost  my  gentle,  helpless  Anna  ! 
When  we  sit  down  to  enjoy  an  hour  of  repose  after  the  fatigue 
of  the  day,  I  am  compelled  to  listen  to  what  have  been  her 
useful  (and  they  are  really  useful)  employments  through  the 
day,  and  what  she  proposes  for  her  to-morrow's  task.  Her 
heart  and  her  features  are  changed  by  the  duties  of  her  situa- 
tion. To  the  boys,  she  never  appears  other  than  the  masters 
wife,  and  she  looks  up  to  me  as  the  boy's  master ;  to  whom 
all  show  of  love  and  affection  would  be  highly  improper,  and 
unbecoming  the  dignity  of  her  situation  and  mine.  Yet  this 
my  gratitude  forbids  me  to  hint,  to  her.  For  my  sake  she 
submitted  to  be  this  altered  creature,  and  can  I  reproach  her 
for  it  ?"  For  the  communication  of  this  letter,  I  am  indebted 
to  my  Cousin  Bridget. 


VALENTINE'S  DAY. 

Hail  to  thy  returning  festival,  old  Bishop  Valentine!  Great 
is  thy  name  in  the  rubric,  thou  venerable  arch-flamen  of  Hy- 
men !  Immortal  go-between  !  who  and  what  manner  of  per- 
son art  thou  ?  Art  thou  but  a  name,  typifying  the  restless 
principle  which  impels  poor  humans  to  seek  perfection  in 
union  1  or  wert  thou  indeed  a  mortal  prelate,  with  thy  tippet 
and  thy  rochet,  thy  apron  on,  and  decent  lawn  sleeves  ? 
Mysterious  personage  !  like  unto  thee,  assuredly,  there  is  no 
other  mitred  father  in  the  calendar  ;  not  Jerome,  nor  Ambrose, 
nor  Cyril  ;  nor  the  consigner  of  undipped  infants  to  eternal 
torments,  Austin,  whom  all  mothers  hate  ;  nor  he  who  hated 
all  mothers,  Origen  ;  nor  Bishop  Bull,  nor  Archbishop  Parker, 
nor  Whitgift.  Thou  comest  attended  with  thousands  and  ten 
thousands  of  little  loves,  and  the  air  is 

"  Brush'd  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings." 


EAYS    OF    ELI  A.  71 

Singing  Cupids  are  thy  choristers  and  thy  precentors  ;  and  in- 
stead of  the  crosier,  the  mystical  arrow  is  borne  before  thee. 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  day  on  which  those  charming 
little  missives,  yclept  Valentines,  cross  and  intercross  each 
other  at  every  street  and  turning.  The  weary  and  all  for- 
spent twopenny  postman  sinks  beneath  a  load  of  delicate  em- 
barrassments, not  his  own.  It  is  scarcely  credible  to  what 
an  extent  this  ephemeral  courtship  is  carried  on  in  this  loving 
town,  to  the  great  enrichment  of  porters,  and  detriment  of 
knockers  and  bell  wires.  In  these  little  visual  interpretations, 
no  emblem  is  so  common  as  the  heart — that  little  three-cor- 
nered exponent  of  all  our  hopes  and  fears — the  bestuck  and 
bleeding  heart  ;  it  is  twisted  and  tortured  into  more  allegories 
and  affectations  than  an  opera  hat.  What  authority  we  have 
in  history,  or  mythology,  for  placing  the  heatl-quarters  and 
metropolis  of  god  Cupid  in  this  anatomical  seat  rather  than 
in  any  other,  is  not  very  clear  ;  but  we  have  got  it,  and  it 
will  serve  as  well  as  any  other.  Else  we  might  easily  ima- 
gine, upon  some  other  system  which  might  have  prevailed  for 
anything  which  our  pathology  knows  to  the  contrary,  a  lover 
addressing  his  mistress,  in  perfect  simplicity  of  feeling,  "  Mad- 
am, my  liver  and  fortune  are  entirely  at  your  disposal ;"  or 
putting  a  delicate  question,  "  Amanda,  have  you  a  midriff  to 
bestow  ?"  But  custom  has  settled  these  things,  and  awarded 
the  seat  of  sentiment  to  the  aforesaid  triangle,  while  its  less 
fortunate  neighbours  wait  at  animal  and  anatomical  distance. 

Not  many  sounds  in  life,  and  I  include  all  urban  and  all  ru- 
ral sounds,  exceed  in  interest  a  knock  at  the  door.  It  "gives 
a  very  echo  to  the  throne  where  hope  is  seated."  But  its  is- 
sues seldom  answer  to  this  oracle  within.  It  is  so  seldom 
that  just  the  person  we  want  to  see  comes.  But  of  all  the 
clamorous  visitations,  the  welcomest  in  expectation  is  the 
sound  that  ushers  in,  or  seems  to  usher  in,  a  Valentine.  As 
the  raven  himself  was  hoarse  that  announced  the  fatal  en- 
trance of  Duncan,  so  the  knock  of  the  postman  on  this  day 
is  light,  airy,  confident,  and  befitting  one  that  bringeth  good 
tidings.  It  is  less  mechanical  than  on  other  days  ;  you  will 
say  "  that  is  not  the  post,  I  am  sure."  Visions  of  love, 
of  Cupids,  of  Hymens  ! — delightful  eternal  commonplaces, 
which  "  having  been,  will  always  be  ;"  which  no  schoolboy 
nor  schoolman  can  write  away ;  having  your  irreversible 
throne  in  the  fancy  and  affections — what  are  your  transports. 
when  the  happy  maiden,  opening  with  careful  finger,  careful 
not  to  break  the  emblematic  seal,  bursts  upon  the  sighl  of 
some  well-designed  allegory,  some  type,  some  youthful  fancy, 
not  without  verses — 


72  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

"  Lovers  all, 
A  madrigal," 

or  some  such  device,  not  over  abundant  in  sense — young 
Love  disclaims  it — and  not  quite  silly — something  between 
wind  and  water,  a  chorus  where  the  sheep  might  almost  join 
the  shepherd,  as  they  did,  or  as  I  apprehend  they  did,  in 
Arcadia. 

All  Valentines  are  not  foolish  ;  and  I  shall  not  easily  forget 
thine,  my  kind  friend  (if  I  may  have  leave  to  call  you  so) 
E.  B.     E.  B.  lived  opposite  a  young  maiden,  whom  he  had 

often  seen,  unseen,  from  his  parlour  window  in  C e-street. 

She  was  all  joyousness  and  innocence,  and  just  of  an  age  to 
enjoy  receiving  a  Valentine,  and  just  of  a  temper  to  bear  the 
disappointment  of  missing  one  with  good  humour.  E.  B.  is 
an  artist  of  no  common  powers  ;  in  the  fancy  parts  of  design- 
ing, perhaps  inferior  to  none  ;  his  name  is  known  at  the  bot- 
tom of  many  a  well-executed  vignette  in  the  way  of  his  pro- 
fession, but  no  further  ;  for  E.  B.  is  modest,  and  the  world 
meets  nobody  halfway.  E.  B.  meditated  how  he  could  re- 
pay this  young  maiden  for  many  a  favour  which  she  had  done 
him  unknown ;  for  when  a  kindly  face  greets  us,  though  but 
passing  by,  and  never  knows  us  again,  nor  we  it,  we  should 
feel  it  as  an  obligation  ;  and  E.  B.  did.  This  good  artist  set 
himself  at  work  to  please  the  damsel.  It  was  just  before 
Valentine's  day,  three  years  since.  He  wrought,  unseen  and 
unsuspected,  a  wondrous  work.  We  need  not  say  it  was  on 
the  finest  gilt  paper  with  borders — full,  not  of  common  hearts 
and  heartless  allegory,  but  all  the  prettiest  stories  of  love  from 
Ovid,  and  older  poets  than  Ovid — (for  E.  B.  is  a  scholar.) 
There  was  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and  be  sure  Dido  was  not 
forgot,  nor  Hero  and  Leander,  and  swans  more  than  sang  in 
OaTster,  with  mottoes  and  fanciful  devices,  such  as  beseemed, 
in  short,  a  work  of  magic.  Iris  dipped  the  woof.  This  on  Val- 
entine's eve  he  commended  to  the  all-swallowing  indiscrimi- 
rtateirig  orifice — (oh  ignoble  trust!) — of  the  common  post; 
but  the  humble  medium  did  its  duty,  and  from  his  watchful 
stand,  the  next  morning,  he  saw  the  cheerful  messenger 
knock,  and  by-and-by  the  precious  charge  delivered.  He 
saw,  unseen,  the  happy  girl  unfold  the  Valentine,  dance  about, 
clap  her  hands,  as  one  after  one  the  pretty  emblems  unfolded 
themselves.  She  danced  about,  not  with  light  love,  or  foolish 
expectations,  for  she  had  no  lover  ;  or,  if  she  had,  none  she 
knew  that  could  have  created  those  bright  images  which  de- 
lighted  her.  It  was  more  like  some  fairy  present;  a  God- 
send, as  our  familiarly  pious  ancestors  termed  a  benefit  re- 
ceived, where  the  benefactor  was  unknown.    It  would  do  her 


ESSAY8    OF    ELI  A.  79 

no  harm.  It  would  do  her  good  for  ever  after.  It  is  good  to 
love  the  unknown.  I  only  give  this  as  a  specimen  of  E.  B. 
and  his  modest  way  of  doing  a  concealed  kindness. 

Good-morrow  to  my  Valentine,  sings  poor  Ophelia  ;  and  no 
better  wish,  but  with  better  auspices,  we  wish  to  all  faithful 
lovers,  who  are  not  too  wise  to  despise  old  legends,  but  are 
content  to  rank  themselves  humble  diocesans  of  old  Bishop 
Valentine  and  his  true  church. 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES. 

I  am  of  a  constitution  so  gf-neral,  that  it  consorts  and  sympathizeth  with 
all  tilings.  I  have  no  antipathy,  or  rather  idiosyncrasy,  in  anything.  Those 
national  repugnances  do  not  touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  predjudice  the 
French,  Italian,  Spaniard,  or  Dutch. — Religio  Medici. 

That  the  author  of  the  Religio  Medici,  mounted  upon  the 
airy  stilts  of  abstraction,  conversant  about  notional  and  con- 
jectural essences — in  whose  categories  of  being  the  possible 
took  the  upper  hand  of  the  actual — should  have  overlooked 
the  impertinent  individualities  of  such  poor  concretions  as 
mankind,  is  not  much  to  be  admired.  It  is  rather  to  be  won- 
deied  at,  that  in  the  genus  of  animals  he  should  have  conde- 
scended to  distinguish  that  species  at  all.  For  myself,  earth- 
bound  and  fettered  to  the  scene  of  my  activities, 

"  Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  sky," 

I  confess  that  I  do  feel  the  differences  of  mankind,  national 
or  individual,  to  an  unhealthy  excess.  I  can  look  with  no  in- 
different eye  upon  tilings  or  persons.  Whatever  is,  is  to  me 
a  matter  of  taste  or  distaste  ;  or  when  once  it  becomes  indif- 
ferent, it  begins  to  be  disrelishing.  I  am,  in  plainer  words, 
a  bundle  of  prejudices — made  up  of  likings  and  dislikings — 
the  veriest  thrall  to  sympathies,  apathies,  and  antipathies.  In 
a  certain  sense,  I  hope  it  may  be  said  of  me  that  I  am  a  lover 
of  my  species.  I  can  feel  for  all  indifferently,  but  I  cannot 
feel  towards  all  equally.  The  more  purely  English  word  that 
expresses  sympathy  will  better  explain  my  meaning.  I  can 
be  a  friend  to  a  worthy  man,  who  upon  another  account  can- 
not be  my  mate  or  fellow.     1  cannot  like  all  people  alike.* 

*  I  would  be  understood  as  confining  myself  to  the  subject  of  imperfect  sym- 
pathies.    To  nations  or  classes  of  men  there  can  be  no  direct  antipathy. 

7  D 


74  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  like  Scotchmen,  and  am 
obliged  to  desist  from  the  experiment  in  despair.  They  can- 
not like  me — and,  in  truth,  I  never  knew  one  of  that  nation 
who  attempted  to  do  it.  There  is  something  more  plain  and 
ingenuous  in  their  mode  of  proceeding.  We  know  one  an- 
other at  first  sight.  There  is  an  order  of  imperfect  intellects, 
(under  which  mine  must  be  content  to  rank,)  which  in  its  con- 
stitution is  essentially  anti-Caledonian.  The  owners  of  the 
sort  of  faculties  I  allude  to,  have  minds  rather  suggestive  than 
comprehensive.  They  have  no  pretences  to  much  clearness 
or  precision  in  their  ideas,  or  in  their  manner  of  expressing 
them.  Their  intellectual  wardrobe  (to  confess  fairly)  has  few 
whole  pieces  in  it.  They  are  content  with  fragments  and 
scattered  pieces  of  truth.  She  presents  no  full  front  to  them 
— a  feature  or  a  side  face  at  the  most.  Hints  and  glimpses, 
germs  and  crude  essays  at  a  system,  is  the  utmost  they  pre- 
tend to.  They  beat  up  a  little  game  peradventure — and  leave 
it  to  knottier  heads,  more  robust  constitutions,  to  run  it  down. 
The  light  that  lights  them  is  not  steady  and  polar,  but  muta- 
ble and  shifting  :  waxing,  and  again  waning.  Their  conversa- 
tion is  accordingly.  They  will  throw  out  a  random  word  in 
or  out  of  season,  and  be  content  to  let  it  pass  for  what  it  is 
worth.  They  cannot  speak  always  as  if  they  were  upon  their 
oath — but  must  be  understood,  speaking  or  writing,  with  some 
abatement.  They  seldom  wait  to  mature  a  proposition,  but 
e'en  bring  it  to  market  in  the  green  ear.  They  delight  to  im- 
part their  defective  discoveries  as  they  arise,  without  waiting 
for  their  full  development.  They  are  no  systematizers,  and 
would  but  err  more  by  attempting  it.  Their  minds,  as  I  said 
before,  are  suggestive  merely.     The  brain  of  a  true  Caledo- 

There  may  be  individuals  born  and  constellated  so  opposite  to  another  indi- 
vidual nature,  that  the  same  sphere  cannot  hold  them.  I  have  met  with  my 
moral  antipodes,  and  can  believe  the  story  of  two  persons  meeting  (who  never 
saw  one  another  before  in  their  lives)  and  instantly  fighting. 

"We  by  proof  find  there  should  be 
'Tween  man  and  man  such  an  antipathy, 
That  though  he  can  show  no  just  reason  why 
For  any  former  wrong  or  injury, 
Can  neither  find  a  blemish  in  his  fame, 
iNor  aught  in  face  or  feature  justly  blame, 
Can  challenge  or  accuse  him  of  no  evil, 
Yet  notwithstanding  hates  him  as  a  devil." 

These  lines  are  from  old  Heywood's  "  Hierarchie  of  Angels,"  and  he  sub 
joins  a  curious  story  in  confirmation,  of  a  Spaniard  who  attempted  to  assassin 
ate  a  King  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  and,  being  put  to  the  rack,  could  give  no  other 
reason  for  tho  deed  than  an  inveterate  antipathy  which  he  had  taken  to  the  first 
eight  of  the  king. 

"The  cause  which  to  that  act  eompell'd  him, 
Was,  ho  ne'er  loved  him  since  he  first  beheld  him." 


ESSAYS    OF    EUA.  75 

nian  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  is  constituted  upon  quite  a  different 
plan.  His  Minerva  is  born  in  panoply.  You  are  never  ad- 
mitted to  see  his  ideas  in  their  growth — if,  indeed,  they  do 
grow,  and  are  not  rather  put  together  upon  principles  of  clock- 
work. You  never  catch  his  mind  in  an  undress.  He  never 
hints  or  suggests  anything,  but  unlades  las  stock  of  ideas  in 
perfect  order  and  completeness.  He  brings  his  total  wealth 
into  company,  and  gravely  unpacks  it.  His  riches  are  always 
about  him.  He  never  stoops  to  catch  a  glittering  something 
in  your  presence,  to  share  it  with  you,  before  he  quite  knows 
whether  it  be  true  touch  or  not.  You  cannot  cry  halves  to 
anything  that  he  finds.  He  does  not  find,  but  bring.  You 
never  witness  his  first  apprehension  of  a  thing.  His  under- 
standing is  always  at  its  meridian — you  never  see  the  first 
dawn,  the  early  streaks.  He  has  no  falterings  of  self-suspi- 
cion. Surmises,  guesses,  misgivings,  half  intuitions,  semi- 
consciousnesses,  partial  illuminations,  dim  instincts,  embryo 
conceptions,  have  no  place  in  his  brain  or  vocabulary.  The 
twilight  of  dubiety  never  falls  upon  him.  Is  he  orthodox — 
he  has  no  doubts.  Is  he  an  infidel — he  has  none  either. 
Between  the  affirmative  and  the  negative  there  is  no  border 
land  with  him.  You  cannot  hover  with  him  upon  the  con- 
fines of  truth,  or  wander  in  the  maze  of  a  probable  argument. 
He  always  keeps  the  path.  You  cannot  make  excursions  wiih 
him — for  he  sets  you  right.  His  taste  never  fluctuates.  His 
morality  never  abates.  He  cannot  compromise,  or  understand 
middle  actions.  There  can  be  but  a  right  and  a  wrong.  His 
conversation  is  as  a  book.  His  affirmations  have  the  sanctity 
of  an  oath.  You  must  speak  upon  tin;  square  with  him.  lie 
stops  a  metaphor  like  a  suspected  person  in  an  enemy's  coun- 
try. "  A  healthy  book  !"  said  one  of  his  countrymen  to  me,  who 
had  ventured  to  give  that  appellation  to  John  Buncle — '"did  I 
catch  rightly  what  you  said  !  I  have  heard  of  a  man  in  health, 
and  of  a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I  do  not  see  how  that  epi- 
thet can  be  properly  applied  to  a  book."  Above  all,  you  must 
beware  of  indirect  expressions  before  a  Caledonian.  Clap  an 
extinguisher  uponyour  irony,  if  you  are  unhappily  blessed  with 
a  \c  in  of  it.  Remember  you  are  upon  your  oath.  I  have  a 
print  of  a  graceful  female,  after  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  which  I 

was    showing   off  to   Mr. -.     After   he   had  examined  it 

minutely,  I  ventured  to  ask  him  how  he  liked  my  hk.utv — (a 
foolish  name  it  goes  by  among  my  friends) — when  he  very 
gravely  assured  me,  that  "he  had  considerable  respect  for  my 
character  and  talents,"  (so  he  was  pleased  to  say,)  "but  had 
not  given  himself  much  though)  about  the  degree  of  my  per- 
sonal pretensions."  The  misconception  staggered  me,  but 
D  2 


76  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

did  not  seem  much  to  disconcert  him.  Persons  of  this  na- 
tion are  particularly  fond  of  affirming  a  truth — which  nobody- 
doubts.  They  do  not  so  properly  affirm,  as  annunciate  it. 
They  do  indeed  appear  to  have  such  a  love  of  truth  (as  if, 
like  virtue,  it  were  valuable  for  itself)  that,  all  truth  becomes 
equally  valuable,  whether  the  proposition  that  contains  it  be 
new  or  old,  disputed  or  such  as  is  impossible  to  become  a  sub- 
ject of  disputation.  I  was  present  not  long  since  at  a  party 
of  North  Britons,  where  a  son  of  Burns  was  expected,  and 
happened  to  drop  a  silly  expression,  (in  my  South  British  way,) 
that  I  wished  it  were  the  father  instead  of  the  son — when  four 
of  them  started  up  at  once  to  inform  me,  that  "  that  was  im- 
possible, because  he  was  dead."  An  impracticable  wish,  it 
seems,  was  more  than  they  could  conceive.  Swift  has  hit  off 
this  part  of  their  character,  namely,  their  love  of  truth,  in  his 
biting  way,  but  with  an  illiberality  that  necessarily  confines  the 
passage  to  the  margin.*  The  tediousness  of  these  people  is 
certainly  provoking.  I  wonder  if  they  ever  tire  one  another  ! 
In  my  early  life  I  had  a  passionate  fondness  for  the  poetry  of 
Burns.  I  have  sometimes  foolishly  hoped  to  ingratiate  myself 
with  his  countrymen  by  expressing  it.  But  I  have  always 
found  that  a  true  Scot  resents  your  admiration  of  his  compa- 
triot, even  more  than  he  would  your  contempt  of  him.  The 
latter  he  imputes  to  your  "  imperfect  acquaintance  with  many 
of  the  wordd  which  he  uses  ;"  and  the  same  objection  makes 
it  a  presumption  in  you  to  suppose  you  can  admire  him. 
Thomson  they  seem  to  have  forgotten.  Smollet  they  have 
neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven,  for  his  delineation  of  Rory  and 
his  companion  upon  their  first  introduction  into  our  metropolis. 
Speak  of  Smollet  as  a  great  genius,  and  they  will  retort  upon 
you  Hume's  History  compared  with  his  continuation  of  it. 
What  if  the  historian  had  continued  Humphrey  Clinker  ? 

I  have,  in  the  abstract,  no  disrespect  for  Jews.  They  are 
a  piece  of  stubborn  antiquity,  compared  with  which  Stone- 
henge  is  in  its  nonage.  They  date  beyond  the  pyramids. 
But  I  should  not  care  to  be  in  habits  of  familiar  intercourse 
with  any  of  that  nation.  I  confess  that  I  have  not  the  nerves 
to  enter  their  synagogues.  Old  prejudices  cling  about  me. 
I  cannot  shake  oil'  the  story  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln.     Centuries 

'  There  are  some  people  who  think  they  sufficiently  acquit  themselves,  and 
entertain  their  company,  with  relating  facts  of  no  consequence,  not  at  all  out 
of  the  road  of  such  common  incidents  as  happen  every  day  ;  and  this  1  have 
observed  more  frequently  among  the  Scotch  than  any  other  nation,  who  are 
very  careful  not  to  omit  the  minutest  circumstances  of  time  or  place  ;  which 
kind  of  discourse,  if  it  were  not  a  little  relieved  by  the  uncouth  terms  and 
phrases,  as  well  as  accent  and  gesture  peculiar  to  that  country,  would  be 
hardly  tolerable. — Hints  towards  an  Essay  on  Conversation. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  77 

of  injury,  contempt,  and  hake,  on  the  one  side — of  cloaked 
revenge,  dissimulation,  and  hate,  on  the  other,  between  our 
and  their  fathers,  must,  and  ought  to,  affect  the  blood  of  the 
children.  I  cannot  believe  it  can  run  clear  and  kindly  vet  ; 
or  that  a  few  fine  words,  such  as  candour,  liberality,  the  li»ht 
of  a  nineteenth  century,  can  close  up  the  breaches  of  so 
deadly  a  disunion.  A  Hebrew  is  nowhere  congenial  to  me. 
He  is  least  distasteful  on  /Change — for  the  mercantile  spirit 
levels  all  distinctions,  as  all  are  beauties  in  the  dark.  1  boldly 
confess  that  I  do  not  relish  the  approximation  of  Jew  and 
Christian,  which  has  become  so  fashionable'.  The  reciprocal 
endearments  have,  to  me,  something  hypocritical  and  unnat- 
ural in  them.  I  do  not  like  to  see  the  church  and  synagogue 
kissing  and  congeeing  in  awkward  postures  of  an  affected  civil- 
ity. If  they  are  converted,  why  do  they  not  come  over  to 
us  altogether  \  Why  keep  up  a  form  of  separation,  when 
the  life  of  it  is  fled  ?  if  they  can  sit  with  us  at  table,  why  do 
they  kick  at  our  cookery  ?  I  do  not  understand  these  half  con- 
vertites.  Jews  Christianizing,  Christians  Judaizing,  puzzle 
me.  1  like  fish  or  flesh.  A  moderate  Jew  is  a  more  con- 
founding piece  of  anomaly  than  a  wet  Quaker.     The  spirit 

of  the    synagogue    is  essentially  separative.      B would 

have  been  more  in  keeping  if  he  had  abided  by  the  faith  of 
his  forefathers.  There  is  a  fine  scorn  in  his  face,  which  na- 
ture meant  to  be  of Christians.     The    Hebrew  spirit  is 

strong  in  him,  in  spite  of  his  proselytism.  He  cannot  con- 
quer the  Shibboleth.  How  it  breaks  out  when  he  sings,  "  The 
Children  of  Israel  passed  through  the  Red  Sea  !"  The  audi- 
tors, for  the  moment,  are  as  Egyptians  to  him,  and  he  rides 
over   our   necks    in    triumph.     There  is   no   mistaking  him. 

B has  a  strong  expression  of  sense  in  his  countenance, 

and  it  is  confirmed  by  his  singing.  The  foundation  of  his  vo- 
cal excellence  is  sense.  He  sings  with  understanding,  as 
Kemble  delivered  dialogue.  He  would  sing  the  command- 
ments, and  give  an  appropriate  character  to  each  prohibition. 
His  nation,  in  general,  have  not  over-sensible  countenances. 
How  should  they  I — but  you  seldom  see  a  silly  expression 
among  them.  Gain,  and  the  pursuit  of  gain,  sharpen  a  man's 
visage.  1  never  heard  of  an  idiot  being  born  among  them. 
Some  admire  the  Jewish  female  physiognomy.  I  admire  it 
— but  with  trembling.  Jael  had  those  full,  dark,  inscrutable 
eyes. 

In  the  negro  countenance  you  will  often  meet  with  strong 
traits  of  benignity.      1  have   fell   yearnings  of  tenderness   to- 
wards   some    of   these    faces — or  rather    masks — that    have 
ooked  out  kindly  upon  one  in  casual  encounters  in  the  streets 
7* 


78  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

and  highways.  1  love  what  Fuller  beautifully  calls — these 
"  images  of  God  cut  in  ebony."  But  I  should  not  like  to  as- 
sociate with  them,  to  share  my  meals  and  my  good  nights 
with  them — because  they  are  black. 

I  love  Quaker  ways,  and  Quaker  worship.  I  venerate  the 
Quaker  principles.  It  does  me  good  for  the  rest  of  the  day 
when  I  meet  any  of  their  people  in  my  path.  When  I  am 
milled  or  disturbed  by  any  occurrence,  the  sight  or  cpiiet 
voice  of  a  Quaker  acts  upon  me  as  a  ventilator,  lightening  the 
air,  and  taking  off  a  load  from  the  bosom.  But  1  cannot  like 
the  Quakers  (as  Desdemona  would  say)  "  to  live  with  them." 
I  am  all  over  sophisticated — with  humours,  fancies,  craving 
hourly  sympathy.  I  must  have  books,  pictures,  theatres,  chit- 
chat, scandal,  jokes,  ambiguities,  and  a  thousand  whim  whams, 
which  their  simpler  taste  can  do  without.  I  should  starve  at 
their  primitive  banquet.  My  appetites  are  too  high  for  the 
salads  which  (according  to  Evelyn)  Eve  dressed  for  the 
angel,  my  gusto  too  excited 

"  To  sit  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse." 

The  indirect  answers  which  Quakers  are  often  found  to  re- 
turn to  a  question  put  to  them  may  be  explained,  I  think, 
without  the  vulgar  assumption,  that  they  are  more  given  to 
evasion  and  equivocating  than  other  people.  They  naturally 
look  to  their  words  more  carefully,  and  are  more  cautious  of 
committing  themselves.  They  have  a  peculiar  character  to 
keep  up  on  this  head.  They  stand  in  a  manner  upon  their 
Areracity.  A  Quaker  is  by  law  exempted  from  taking  an  Oath. 
The  custom  of  resorting  to  an  oath  in  extreme  cases,  sancti- 
fied as  it  is  by  all  religious  antiquity,  is  apt  (it  must  be  con- 
fessed) to  introduce  into  the  laxer  sort  of  minds  the  notion  of 
two  kinds  of  truth — the  one  applicable  to  the  solemn  affairs 
of  justice,  and  the  other  to  the  common  proceedings  of  daily 
intercourse.  As  truth  bound  upon  the  conscience  by  an  oath 
can  be  but  truth,  so  in  the  common  affirmations  of  the  shop 
and  the  market  place  a  latitude  is  expected  and  conceded 
upon  questions  wanting  this  solemn  covenant.  Something 
less  than  truth  satisfies.  It  is  common  to  hear  a  person  say, 
"  You  do  not  expect  me  to  speak  as  if  I  were  upon  my  oath." 
Hence  a  f^rcat  deal  of  incorrectness  and  inadvertency,  short 
of  falsehood,  creeps  into  ordinary  conversation  ;  and  a  kind 
of  secondarv  or  laic,  truth  is  tolerated,  where  clergy  truth — 
oath  truth,  by  tin;  nature  of  circumstances — is  not  required. 
A  Quaker  knows  none  of  this  distinction.  His  simple  affirm- 
ation being  received,  upon  the  most,  sacred  occasions,  without 
any  further  test,  stamps  a  value  upon   the  words  which   he  is 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  79 

to  use  upon  the  most  indifferent  topics  of  life.  He  looks  to 
them,  naturally,  with  more  severity.  You  can  have  of  him 
no  more  than  his  word.  He  knows,  if  he  is  caught  tripping 
in  a  casual  expression,  he  forfeits,  for  himself  at  least,  his 
claim  to  the  invidious  exemption.  He  knows  that  his  sylla- 
bles are  weighed — and  how  far  a  consciousness  of  this  par- 
ticular watchfulness,  exerted  against  a  person,  lias  a  tendency 
to  produce  indirect  answers,  and  a  diverting  of  the  question 
hy  honest  means,  might  be  illustrated,  and  the  practice  justi- 
fied, by  a  more  sacred  example  than  is  proper  to  be  adduced 
upon  this  occasion.  The  admirable  presence  of  mind,  which 
is  notorious  in  Quakers  upon  all  contingencies,  might  be 
traced  to  this  imposed  self-watchfulness — if  it  did  not  seem 
rather  an  humble  and  secular  scion  of  that  old  stock  of  reli- 
gious constancy,  which  never  bent  or  faltered  in  the  primitive 
friends,  or  gave  way  to  the  winds  of  persecution,  to  the  vio- 
lence of  judge  or  accuser,  under  trials  and  racking  examina- 
tions. "  You  will  never  be  the  wiser,  if  I  sit  here  answering 
your  questions  till  midnight,"  said  one  of  those  upright  jus- 
tices to  Penn,  who  had  been  putting  law  cases  with  a  puzzling 
subtlety.  "  Thereafter  as  the  answers  may  be,"  retorted  the 
Quaker.  The  astonishing  composure  of  this  people  is 
sometimes  ludicrously  displayed  in  lighter  instances.  I  was 
travelling  in  a  stage  coach  with  three  male  Quakers,  buttoned 
up  in  the  straightest  nonconformity  of  their  sect.  We  stopped 
to  bait  at  Andover,  where  a  meal,  partly  tea  apparatus,  partly 
supper,  was  set  before  us.  My  friends  confined  themselves 
to  the  tea  table.  I  in  my  way  took  supper.  When  the  land- 
lady brought  in  the  bill,  the  eldest  of  my  companions  dis- 
covered that  she  had  charged  for  both  meals.  This  was  re- 
sisted. Mine  hostess  was  very  clamorous  and  positive. 
Some  mild  arguments  were  used  on  the  part  of  the  Quakers, 
for  which  the  heated  mind  of  the  good  lady  seemed  by  no 
means  a  fit  recipient.  The  guard  came  in  with  his  usual 
peremptory  notice.  The  Quakers  pulled  out  their  money, 
and  formally  tendered  it — so  much  for  tea  ;  I,  in  humble  im- 
itation, tendering  mine  for  the  supper  which  I  had  taken. 
She  would  not  relax  in  her  demand.  So  they  all  three  quietly 
put  up  their  silver,  as  did  myself,  and  marched  out  of  the 
room,  the  eldest  and  gravest  going  first,  with  myself  closing 
up  the  rear,  who  thought  I  could  not  do  better  than  follow  the 
example  of  such  grave  and  warrantable  personages.  We  got 
in.  The  steps  went  up.  The  coach  drove  off.  The  mur- 
murs of  mine  hostess,  not  very  indistinctly  or  ambiguously  pro- 
nounced, became,  after  a  time,  inaudible --rand  now  my  con- 
science, which  the  whimsical  scene  had  for  a  while  suspended, 


80  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

beginning  to  give  some  twitches,  I  waited  in  the  hopes  that 
some  justification  would  be  offered  by  these  serious  persons 
for  the  seeming  injustice  of  their  conduct.  To  my  great  sur- 
prise, not  a  syllable  was  dropped  on  the  subject.  They  sat 
as  mute  as  at  a  meeting.  At  length  the  eldest  of  them  broke 
silence,  by  inquiring  of  his  next  neighbour,  "  Hast  thou 
heard  how  indigoes  go  at  the  India  House  ?"  and  the  question, 
operated  as  a  soporific  on  my  moral  feeling  as  far  as  Exeter. 


WITCHES  AND  OTHER  NIGHT  FEARS 

We  are  too  hasty  when  we  set  down  our  ancestors  in  tne 
gross  for  fools,  for  the  monstrous  inconsistencies  (as  they 
seem  to  us)  involved  in  their  creed  of  witchcraft.  In  the  re- 
lations of  this  visible  world  we  find  them  to  have  been  as  ra- 
tional, and  shrewd  to  detect  an  historic  anomaly,  as  ourselves. 
But  when  once  the  invisible  world  was  supposed  to  be  opened, 
and  the  lawless  agency  of  bad  spirits  assumed,  what  measures 
of  probability,  of  decency,  of  fitness,  or  proportion — of  that 
which  distinguishes  the  likely  from  the  palpable  absurd — 
could  they  have  to  guide  them  in  the  rejection  or  admission 
of  any  particular  testimony  ?  That  maidens  pined  away, 
wasting  inwardly  as  their  waxen  images  consumed  before  a 
fire — that  corn  was  lodged,  and  cattle  lamed — that  whirlwinds 
uptore  in  diabolical  revelry  the  oaks  of  the  forest — or  that 
spits  and  kettles  only  danced  a  fearful-innocent  vagary  about 
some  rustic's  kitchen  when  no  wind  was  stirring — were  all 
equally  probable  where  no  law  of  agency  was  understood. 
That  the  prince  of  the  powers  of  darkness,  passing  by  the 
flower  and  pomp  of  the  earth,  should  lay  preposterous  siege 
to  the  weak  fantasy  of  indigent  eld — has  neither  likelihood 
nor  unlikelihood  a  priori  to  us,  who  have  no  measure  to  guess 
at  liis  policy,  or  standard  to  estimate  what  rate  those  anile 
souls  may  fetch  in  the  devil's  market.  Nor,  when  the  wicked 
are  expressly  symbolized  by  a  goat,  was  it  to  be  wondered  at 
so  much,  that  he  should  come  sometimes  in  that  body  and  as- 
sert his  metaphor.  That  the  intercourse  was  opened  at  all 
between  both  worlds  was  perhaps  the  mistake — but  that  once 
assumed,  I  see  no  reason  for  disbelieving  one  attested  story 
of  this  nature  more  than  another  on  the  score  of  absurdity. 
There  is  no  law  to  judge  of  the  lawless,  or  canon  by  which  a 
dream  may  be  criticised. 


ESSAYS    OK    ELIA.  81 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  could  not  have  existed  in 
the  days  of  received  witchcraft ;  that  I  could  not  have  slept 
in  a  village  where  one  of  those  reputed  hags  dwelt.  Our  an- 
cestors were  bolder  or  more  obtuse.  Amid  the  universal  be- 
lief that  these  wretclies  were  in  league  with  the  author  of  all 
evil,  holding  hell  tributary  to  their  muttering,  no  simple  jus- 
tice of  the  peace  seems  to  have  scrupled  issuing,  or  sillv 
Headborough  serving,  a  warrant  upon  them — as  if  they  should 
subpoena  Satan  !  Prospero  in  his  boat,  with  his  books  and 
wand  about,  him,  Buffers  himself  to  be  conveyed  away  at  the 
mercy  of  his  enemies  to  an  unknown  island.  lie  mioht  have 
raised  a  storm  or  two,  we  think,  on  the  passage.  His  acqui- 
escence is  in  exact  analogy  to  the  non-resistance  of  witches 
to  the  constituted  powers.  What  stops  the  fiend  in  Spenser 
from  tearing  Guyon  to  pieces — or  who  had  made  it  a  condi- 
tion of  his  prey,  that  Guyon  must  take  assay  of  the  glorious 
bait — we  have  no  guess.  We  do  not  know  the  laws  of  that 
country. 

From  my  childhood  I  was  extremely  inquisitive  about 
witches  and  witch  stories.  My  maid,  and  more  legendary 
aunt,  supplied  me  with  good  store.  But  I  shall  mention  the 
accident  which  directed  my  curiosity  originally  into  this  chan- 
nel. In  my  father's  book  closet,  the  History  of  the  Bible,  by 
Staekhouse,  occupied  a  distinguished  station.  The  pictures 
with  which  it  abounds — one  of  the  ark,  in  particular,  and 
another  of  Solomon's  temple,  delineated  with  all  the  fidelity 
of  ocular  admeasurement,  as  if  the  artist  had  been  upon  the 
spot — attracted  my  childish  attention.  There  was  a  picture, 
too,  of  the  witch  raising  up  Samuel,  which  I  wish  that  I  had 
never  seen.  We  shall  come  to  that  hereafter.  Stackhouse 
is  in  two  huge  tomes — and  there  was  a  pleasure  in  removing 
folios  of  that  magnitude,  which,  with  infinite  straining,  was 
as  much  as  I  could  manage,  from  the  situation  which  they  oc- 
cupied upon  an  upper  shelf.  I  have  not  met  with  the  work 
from  that  time  to  this,  but  I  remember  it  consisted  of  Old 
Testament  stories,  orderly  set  down  with  the  objection  appen- 
daged  to  each  story,  and  the  solution  of  the  objection  regu- 
larly tacked  to  that.  The  objection  was  a  summary  of  what- 
ever difficulties  had  been  opposed  to  the  credibility  of  the 
history,  by  the  shrewdness  of  ancient  or  modern  infidelity, 
drawn  up  with  an  almost  complimentary  excess  of  candour. 
The  solution  was  brief,  modest,  and  satisfactory.  The  bane 
and  antidote  were  both  before  you.  To  doubts  so  put,  and  so 
quashed,  there  seemed  to  be  an  end  for  ever.  The  dragon 
lay  dead,  for  the  foot  of  the  veriest  babe  n>  trample  on.  But 
— like  as  was  Bathe?  feared  than  realized  from  that  slain  mon- 

D  3 


82  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

ster  in  Spenser — from  the  womb  of  those  crushed  errors 
young  dragonets  would  creep,  exceeding  the  prowess  of  so 
tender  a  Saint  George  as  myself  to  vanquish.  The  habit  of 
expecting  objections  to  every  passage,  set  me  upon  starting- 
more  objections,  for  the  glory  of  finding  a  solution  of  my  own 
for  them.  I  became  staggered  and  perplexed,  a  skeptic  in 
long  coats.  The  pretty  Bible  stories  which  I  had  read,  or 
heard  read  in  church,  lost  their  purity  and  sincerity  of  im- 
pression, and  were  turned  into  so  many  historic  or  chronologic 
theses  to  be  defended  against  whatever  impugners.  I  was 
not  to  disbelieve  them,  but — the  next  thing  to  that — I  was  to 
be  quite  sure  that  some  one  or  other  would  or  had  disbelieved 
them.  Next  to  making  a  child  an  infidel,  is  the  letting  him 
know  that  there  are  infidels  at  all.  Credulity  is  the  man's 
weakness,  but  the  child's  strength.  Oh,  how  ugly  sound 
scriptural  doubts  from  the  mouth  of  a  babe  and  a  suckling ! 
I  should  have  lost  myself  in  these  mazes,  and  have  pined 
away,  I  think,  with  such  unfit  sustenance  as  these  husks  af- 
forded, but  for  a  fortunate  piece  of  ill-fortune  which  about 
this  time  befell  me.  Turning  over  the  picture  of  the  ark  with 
too  much  haste,  I  unhappily  made  a  breach  in  its  ingenious 
fabric — driving  my  inconsiderate  fingers  right  through  the  two 
larger  quadrupeds — the  elephant  and  the  camel — that  stare 
(as  well  they  might)  out  of  the  two  last  windows  next  the- 
steerage  in  that  unique  piece  of  naval  architecture.  Stack- 
house  was  henceforth  locked  up,  and  became  an  interdicted 
treasure.  With  the  book,  the  objections  and  solutions  grad- 
ually cleared  out  of  my  head,  and  have  seldom  returned  since 
in  any  force  to  trouble  me.  But  there  was  one  impression 
which  I  had  imbibed  from  Stackhouse,  which  no  lock  or  bar 
could  shut  out,  and  which  was  destined  to  try  my  childish 
nerves  rather  more  seriously.     That  detestable  picture  ! 

I  was  dreadfully  alive  to  nervous  terrors.  The  nighttime 
solitude  and  the  dark  were  my  hell.  The  sufferings  I  en- 
dured in  this  nature  would  justify  the  expression.  I  never 
laid  my  head  on  my  pillow,  I  suppose,  from  the  fourth  to  the 
seventh  or ejghth  year  of  my  life — so  far  as  memory  serves  in 
things  so  long  ago — without  an  assurance,  which  realized  its 
own  prophecy,  of  seeing  some  frightful  spectre.  Be  old 
Ntnekliouse  then  acquitted  in  part,  if  I  say,  that  to  his  picture 
of  the  Witch  raising  up  Samuel  (oh  that  old  man  covered 
with  a  mantle!)  I  owe — not  my  midnight  terrors,  the  hell 
of  my  infancy — but  the  shape  and  manner  of  their  visitation. 
It  was  he  who   dressed  up  for  me  a  hag  that  nightly  sat  upon 

my  pillow  -a  sure  bedfellow,  when  my  aunt  or  maid  was  far 
from  me,     All  day  long,  while  the  book  was  permitted  me,  I 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  83 

dreamed  waking  over  his  delineation,  and  at  night  (if  I  may 
use  so  bold  an  expression)  awoke  into  sleep,  and  found  the 
vision  true.  I  durst  not,  even  in  the  daylight,  once  enter  the 
chamber  where  I  slept,  without  my  fac<  turned  to  the  window, 
aversely  from  the  bed  where  my  witch-ridden  pillow  was. 
Parents  do  not  know  what  they  do  when  they  leave  tender 
bains  alone  to  go  to  sleep  in  the  dark.  'I 'he  feeling  about 
for  a  friendly  arm — the  hoping  for  a  familiar  voice — when 
they  wake  screaming — and  find  none  to  sooth  them — what 
a  terrible  shaking  it  is  to  their  poor  nerves  !  The  keeping 
them  up  till  midnight,  through  candlelight  and  the  unwhole- 
some hours,  as  they  are  called,  would,  I  am  satisfied,  in  a 
medical  point  of  view,  prove  the  better  caution.  That  detest- 
able picture,  as  I  have  said,  gave  the  fashion  to  my  dreams — 
if  dreams  they  were — for  the  scene  of  them  was  invariably 
the  room  in  which  I  lay.  Had  I  never  met  with  the  picture, 
the  fears  would  have  come  self-pictured  in  some  shape  or 
otluer — 

"  Headless  bear,  black  man,  or  ape" — 

but,  as  it  was,  my  imaginations  took  that  form.  It  is  not  book 
or  picture,  or  the  stories  of  foolish  servants,  which  create 
these  terrors  in  children.  They  can  at  most  but  give  them 
a  direction.  Dear  tittle  T.  H. — who  of  all  children  has  been 
brffaght  up  with  the  most  scrupulous  exclusion  of  every  taint 
of  superstition,  who  was  never  allowed  to  hear  of  goblin  or 
apparition,  or  scarcely  to  be  told  of  bad  men,  or  to  read  or 
hear  of  any  distressing  story — finds  all  this  world  of  fear,  from 
which  he  has  been  so  rigidly  excluded,  ab  extra,  in  his  own 
"  thick-coming  fancies  ;"  and  from  his  little  midnight  pillow, 
this  nurse  child  of  optimism  will  start  at  shapes,  unborrowed 
of  tradition,  in  sweats  to  which  the  reveries  of  the  cell-damned 
murderer  are  tranquillity. 

Gorgons,  and  hydras,  and  chimeras — dire  stories  of  Ce- 
10  and  the  harpies — may  reproduce  themselves  in  the 
brain  of  superstition — but  they  were  there  before.  They  are 
transcripts,  types — the  archetypes  are  in  us,  and  eternal. 
How  else  should  the  recital  of  that,  which  we  know  in  a 
waking  sense  to  be  false,  come  to  affect  us  at  all  ! — or 

"  Names,  whose  sense  we  see  not, 
Fray  us  with  things  that  be  D 

Is  it  that  we  naturally  conceive  terror  from  stub  objects,  con- 
sidered in  their  capacity  of  being  able  to  inflict  upon  us  bod- 
ih  injury!  Oh.  least  of  all!  These  terrors  are  of  older 
standing:     They  date  beyond  body — or,  without  the  body, 


84  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

they  would  have  been  the  same.  All  the  cruel,  tormenting, 
defined  devils  in  Dante — tearing,  mangling,  choking,  stifling, 
scorching  demons — are  they  one  half  so  fearful  to  the  spirit 
of  a  man,  as  the  simple  idea  of  a  spirit  unimbodied  following 
him — 

*'  Like  one  that  in  a  lonesome  road 

Doth  walk  in  fear  and  dread, 

And  having  once  turn'd  round,  walks  on, 

And  turns  no  more  his  head; 

Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 

Doth  close  behind  him  tread  ?"* 

That  the  kind  of  fear  here  treated  of  is  purely  spiritual — 
that  it  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it  is  objectless  upon  earth — 
that  it  predominates  in  the  period  of  sinless  infancy — are  dif- 
ficulties, the  solution  of  which  might  afford  some  probable  in- 
sight into  our  ante-mundane  condition,  and  a  peep  at  least 
into  the  shadow  land  of  pre-existence. 

My  night  fancies  have  long  ceased  to  be  afflictive.  I  con- 
fess an  occasional  nightmare  ;  but  I  do  not,  as  in  early  youth, 
keep  a  stud  of  them.  Fiendish  faces,  with  the  extinguished 
taper,  will  come  and  look  at  me  ;  but  I  know  them  for  mock- 
eries, even  while  I  cannot  elude  their  presence,  and  I  light 
and  grapple  with  them.  For  the  credit  of  my  imagination,  I 
am  almost  ashamed  to  say  how  tame  and  prosaic  my  dreams 
are  grown.  They  are  never  romantic,  seldom  even  rural. 
They  are  of  architecture  and  of  buildings— cities  abroad, 
which  I  have  never  seen,  and  hardly  have  hope  to  see.  I 
have  traversed,  for  the  seeming  length  of  a  natural  day,  Rome, 
Amsterdam,  Paris,  Lisbon — their  churches,  palaces,  squares, 
market  places,  shops,  suburbs,  ruins,  with  an  inexpressible 
sense  of  delight — a  maplike  distinctness  of  trace  —  and  a  day- 
light vividness  of  vision,  that  was  all  but  being  awake.  [ 
have  formerly  travelled  among  the  Westmoreland  fells — my 
highest  Alps — but  they  are  objects  too  mighty  for  the  gra^) 
of  my  dreaming  recognition  ;  and  I  have  again  and  again 
awoke  with  ineffectual  struggles  of  the  inner  eye,  to  make  out 
a  shape,  in  any  way  whatever,  of  Helvellyn.  Methought  I 
was  in  that  country,  but  the  mountains  were  gone.  The  pov- 
erty of  my  dreams  mortifies  me.  There  is  Coleridge,  at  Lis 
will  can  conjure  up  icy  domes,  and  pleasure  houses  for  Kubla 
Khan,  and  Abyssinian  maids,  and  songs  of  Abora,  and  caverns, 

"  Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  runs," 

to  solace  his  night  solitudes — when  I  cannot  muster  a  fiddle. 
Barry  Cornwall  has  his  Tritons  and  his  Nereids  gambolling 

*  Mr.  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  85 

before  him  in  nocturnal  visions,  and  proclaiming  sons  born  to 
Neptune — when  my  stretch  of  imaginative  activity  can  hardly, 
in  the  night  season,  raise  up  the  ghofct  of  a  fish  wife.  To 
set  my  failures  in  somewhat  a  mortifying  light,  it  was  after 
reading  the  njble  Dream  of  this  poet  that  my  fancy  ran 
strong  upon  these  marine  spectra  ;  and  the  poor  plastic  power, 
such  as  it  is  within  me,  set  to  work  to  humour  my  folly  in  a  sort 
of  dream  that  very  night.  Methought.  I  was  upon  the  ocean 
billows  at  some  sea  nuptials,  ruling  and  mounted  high,  with 
the  customary  train  sounding  their  conchs  before  me,  (I 
myself,  you  may  be  sure,  the  leading  god,)  and  jollily  we 
went  careering  over  the  main,  till  just  where  Ino  Leucothea 
should  have  greeted  me  (I  think  it  was  Ino)  with  a  white  em- 
brace, the  billows  gradually  subsiding,  fell  from  a  sea  rough- 
ness to  a  sea  calm,  and  thence  to  a  river  motion,  and  that 
river  (as  happens  in  the  familiarization  of  dreams)  was  no 
other  than  the  gentle  Thames,  which  landed  me,  in  the  waft- 
ure  of  a  placid  wave  or  two,  alone,  safe,  and  inglorious,  some- 
where at  the  foot  of  Lambeth  palace. 

The  degree  of  the  soul's  creativeness  in  sleep  might  furnish 
no  whimsical  criterion  of  the  quantum  of  poetical  faculty  re- 
sident in  the  same  soul  waking.  An  old  gentleman,  a  friend 
of  mine,  and  a  humorist,  used  to  carry  this  notion  so  far,  that 
when  he  saw  any  stripling  of  his  acquaintance  ambitious  of 
becoming  a  poet,  his  lirst  question  would  be — "  Young  man, 
what  sort  of  dreams  have  you  ?"  I  have  so  much  faith  in  my 
old  friend's  theory,  that  when  I  feel  that  idle  vein  returning 
upon  me,  I  presently  subside  into  my  proper  element  of  prose, 
remembering  those  eluding  Nereids,  and  that  inauspicious  in- 
land landing. 


MY  RELATIONS. 

I  am  arrived  at  that  point  of  life,  at  which  a  man  may  ac- 
count it  a  blessing,  as  it  is  a  singularity,  if  he  have  either  of 
his  parents  surviving.  I  have  not  that  felicity;  and  some- 
times think  feelingly  of  a  passage  in  Brown's  Christian  Morals, 
where  he  speaks  of  a  man  that  hath  lived  sixty  or  seventy 
years  in  the  world.  "In  such  a  compass  of  time,"  he  save, 
'•  a  man  may  have  a  close  apprehension  what  it  is  to  be  for- 
gotten, when  he  hath  lived  to  find  none  who  could  remember 
his  father,  or  scarcely  the  friends  of  his  vouth,  and  may  sen- 
8 


86  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

sibly  see  with  what  a  face,  in  no  long  time,  Oblivion  will 
look  upon  himself." 

I  had  an  aunt,  a  dear  and  good  one.  She  was  one  whom 
single  blessedness  had  soured  to  the  world.  She  often  used 
to  say,  that  I  was  the  only  thing  in  it  which  she  loved  ;  and, 
when  she  thought  I  was  quitting  it,  she  grieved  over  me  with 
mother's  tears.  A  partiality  quite  so  exclusive  my  reason 
cannot  altogether  approve.  She  was  from  morning  till  night 
poring  over  good  books  and  devotional  exercises.  Her  fa- 
vourite volumes  were  Thomas  a  Kempis,  in  Stanhope's  trans- 
lation ;  and  a  Roman  Catholic  prayer  book,  with  the  matins 
and  complines  regularly  set  down — terms  which  I  was  at  that 
time  too  young  to  understand.  She  persisted  in  reading  them, 
although  admonished  daily  concerning  their  Papistical  ten- 
dency ;  and  went  to  church  every  Sabbath,  as  a  good  Prot- 
estant should  do.  These  were  the  only  books  she  studied  ; 
though,  I  think,  at  one  period  of  her  life,  she  told  me  she 
had  read  with  great  satisfaction  the  Adventures  of  an  Unfor- 
tunate Young  Nobleman.  Finding  the  door  of  the  chapel  in 
Essex-street  open  one  day— it  was  in  the  infancy  of  that 
heresy — she  went  in,  liked  the  sermon,  and  the  manner  of 
Avorship,  and  frequented  it  at  intervals  for  some  time  after. 
She  came  not  for  doctrinal  points,  and  never  missed  them. 
With  some  little  asperities  in  her  constitution,  which  I  have 
above  hinted  at,  she  was  a  steadfast,  friendly  being,  and  a  fine 
old  Christian.  She  was  a  woman  of  strong  sense,  and  a 
shrewd  mind — extraordinary  at  a  repartee;  one  of  the  few 
occasions  of  her  breaking  silence — else  she  did  not  much 
value  wit.  The  only  secular  employment  I  remember  to  have 
seen  her  engaged  in,  was  the  splitting  of  French  beans,  and 
dropping  them  into  a  China  basin  of  fair  water.  The  odour 
of  those  tender  vegetables  to  this  day  comes  back  upon  my 
sense,  redolent  of  soothing  recollections.  Certainly  it  is  the 
most  delicate  of  culinary  operations. 

Male  aunts,  as  somebody  calls  them,  I  had  none  —  to*  re- 
member. By  the  uncle's  side,  I  may  be  said  to  have  been 
born  an  orphan.  Brother,  or  sister,  I  never  had  any — to  know 
them.  A  sister,  T  think,  that  should  have  been  -Elizabeth, 
died  in  both  our  infancies.  What  a  comfort,  or  what  a  care, 
may  I  not  have  missed  in  her!  But  I  have  cousins  sprinkled 
about  in  Hertfordshire — besides  two,  with  whom  1  have  been 
all  my  life  in  habits  pf-the  closest  intimacy,  and  whom  I  may 
term  cousins  par  excellence.  These  are  James  and  Bridget 
Elia.  They  are  older  thaji  myself  by  tweLvej  and  ten  years  ; 
and  neither  of  them  seems  disposed,  in  matters  of  advire  u\)i\ 
guidance,  to  waive  any  of  the  prerogatives  which  primogeni- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  87 

ture  confers.  May  they  continue  still  in  tho  same  mind  ;  and 
when  they  shall  be  seventy-live,  and  seventy-three  years  old, 
(I  cannot  spare  them  sooner,)  persist  in  treating  nve  in  mv 
grand  climateric  precisely  as  a  stripling,  or  younger  brother  ! 

Janus  is  an  inexplicable  cousin.  Nature  hath  her  unities, 
which  not  every  critic  can  penetrate  j  or,  if  we  feel,  we  eaU- 
not  explain  them.  The  pen  of  Yorick,  and  of  none  since  his, 
could  have  drawn  J.  E.  entire — those  fine  Shandian  lights 
and  shades  which  make  up  his  story.  I  must  limp  after  in 
my  poor  antithetical  manner,  as  the  fates  have  given  me 
grace  and  talent.  J.  E.  then — to  the  eye  of  a  common  ob- 
server at  least — seemeth  made  up  of  contradictory  principles. 
The  genuine  child  of  impulse,  the  frigid  philosopher  of  pru- 
dence— the  phlegm  of  my  cousin's  doctrine  is  invariably  at 
war  with  his  temperament,  which  is  high  sanguine.  With 
always  some  fire-new  project  in  his  brain,  J.  E.  is  the  syste- 
matic opponent  of  innovation,  and  crier  down  of  everything 
that  has  not  stood  the  test  of  age  and  experiment.  With  a 
hundred  fine  notions  chasing  one  another  hourly  in  his  fancy-, 
he  is  startled  at  the  least  approach  to  the  romantic  in  others  ; 
and,  determined  by  his  own  sense  in  everything,  commends 
you  to  the  guidance  of  common  sense  on  ali  occasions.  With 
a  touch  of  the  eccentric  in  all  which  he  does  or  says,  he  is' 
only  anxious  that  you  should  not  commit  yourself  by  doing 
anything  absurd  or  singular.  On  my  once  letting  slip  at  tahle. 
that  I  was  not  fond  of  a  certain  popular  dish,  he  begged  me 
at.  any  rate  not  to  say  so — for  the  world  would  think  me  mad. 
He  disguises  a  passionate  fondness  for  works  of  high  art, 
(whereof  he  hath  amassed  a  choice  collection,)  under  the 
pretext  of  buying  only  to  sell  again — that  his  enthusiasm  m  ,v 
give  no  encouragement  to  yours.  Vet,  if  it  were  so,  why 
does  that  piece  of  tender,  pastoral  Dominichino  hang  still  by 
his  wall  ? — is  the  ball  of  his  sight  much  more  dear  to  him  .' — 
or  what  picture  dealer  can  talk  like  him  ' 

Whereas  mankind  in  general  are  observed  to  warp  their 
speculative  conclusions  to  the  bent  of  their  individual  humours, 
his  theories  are  sure  to  be  in  diametrical  opposition  to  his 
constitution.  He  is  courageous  as  Charles  of  Sweden,  upon 
instinct  ;  chary  of  his  person,  upon  principle,  as  a  travelling 
Quaker.  He  has  been  preaching  up  to  me.  all  my  life,  the 
doctrine  of  bowing  to  the  great — the  necessity  of  forms  ai  d 
manners  to  a  man's  getting  on  in  the  world.  He  himseli 
aims  at  either,  that  1  can  discover — and  has  a  spirit  that  would 
stand  upright  in  the  presence  of  the  Cham  of  Tartary.  It  is 
pleasant  to  hear  him  discourse  of  patienc< — extolling 
the  trues:   wisdom — and  to  :u'  him  durins   the   las 


88  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

minutes  that  his  dinner  is  getting  ready.  Nature  never  ran 
up  in  her  haste  a  more  restless  piece  of  workmanship  than 
when  she  moulded  this  impetuous  cousin — and  Art  never 
turned  out  a  more  elaborate  orator  than  he  can  display  him- 
sell  to  be,  upon  his  favourite  topic  of  the  advantages  of  quiet 
and  contentedness  in  the  state,  whatever  it  be,  that  we  are 
placed  in.  He  is  triumphant  on  this  theme,  when  he  has 
you  safe  in  one  of  those  short  stages  that  ply  for  the  western 
road,  in  a  very  obstructing  manner,  at  the  foot  of  John  Mur- 
ray's street — where  you  get  in  when  it  is  empty,  and  are  ex- 
pected to  wait  till  the  vehicle  hath  completed  her  just  freight 
— a  trying  three  quarters  of  an  hour  to  some  people.  He 
wonders  at  your  fidgetyness — "  where  could  we  be  better  than 
we  are,  thus  sitting,  thus  consulting?" — "prefers,  for  his  part,  a 
state  of  rest  to  locomotion" — with  an  eye  all  the  while  upon 
the  coachman — till  at  length,  waxing  out  of  all  patience,  at 
your  want  of  it,  he  breaks  out  into  a  pathetic  remonstrance  at 
the  fellow  for  detaining  us  so  long  over  the  time  which  he 
had  professed,  and  declares  peremptorily,  that  "  the  gentle- 
man in  the  coach  is  determined  to  get  out,  if  he  does  not  drive 
on  that  instant." 

Very  quick  at  inventing  an  argument,  or  detecting  a  sophis- 
try, he  is  incapable  of  attending  you  in  any  chain  of  arguing. 
Indeed,  he  makes  wild  work  with  logic  ;  and  seems  to  jump 
at  most  admirable  conclusions  by  some  process,  not  at  all  akin 
to  it.  Consonantly  enough  to  this,  he  hath  been  heard  to 
deny,  upon  certain  occasions,  that  there  exists  such  a  faculty 
at  all  in  man  as  reason ;  and  wondereth  how  man  came  first 
to  have  a  conceit  of  it — enforcing  his  negation  with  all  the 
might  of  reasoning  he  is  master  of.  He  has  some  speculative 
notions  against  laughter,  and  will  maintain  that  laughing  is 
not  natural  to  him — when  peradventure  the  next  moment  his 
lungs  shall  crow  like  Chanticleer.  He  says  some  of  the  best 
things  in  the  world — and  declareth  that  wit  is  his  aversion. 
It  was  he  who  said,  upon  seeing  the  Eaton  boys  at  play  in 
their  grounds,  What  a  pity  to  think,  that  these  fine  ingenuous 
lads  in  a  few  years  will  all  he  changed  into  frivolous  members 
of  parliament  ! 

His  youth  was  fiery,  glowing,  tempestuous — and  in  age  he 
discovereth  no  symptom  of  cooling.  This  is  that  which  I 
admire  in  him.  I  hate  people  who  meet  Time  halfway.  I 
;iih  lor  no  compromise  with  that  inevitable  spoiler.  While  he 
lives,  J.  E.  will  take  his  swing.  It  does  me  good  as  I  walk 
towards  the  street  of  my  daily  avocation,  on  some  line  May 
morning,  to  meet  him  marching  in  a  quite  opposite  direction, 
with  a  jolly  handsome  presence,  and  shining  sanguine  face, 


BSSAYS    OF    ELIA.  89 

that  indicates  some  purchase  in  his  eye — a  Claude — or  a 
Hobbima — for  much  of  his  enviable  leisure  is  consumed  at 
Christie's  and  Phillips's — or  where  not,  to  pick  up  pictures, 
and  such  gauds.  On  tin  fee  occasions  he  mostly  stoppeth  me, 
to  read  a  short  lecture  on  the  advantage  a  person  like  me 
possesses  above  himself,  in  having  his  time  occupied  with 
business  which  he  must  do — assureth  me  that  he  often  feels 
it  hang  heavy  on  his  hands — wishes  he  had  fewer  holydays 
— and  goes  off — Westward  Ho  ! — chanting  a  tune,  to  Pall 
Mall — perfectly  convinced  that  he  has  convinced  me — while 
1  proceed  ill  my  opposite  direction  tuneless. 

It  is  pleasant  again  to  see  this  professor  of  indifference 
doing  the  honours  of  his  new  purchase,  when  he  has  fairly 
housed  it.  You  must  view  it  in  every  light,  till  he  has  found 
the  best — placing  it  at  this  distance,  and  at  that,  but  always 
suiting  the  focus  of  your  sight  to  his  own.  You  must  spy  at 
it  through  your  fingers,  to  catch  the  aerial  perspective — though 
you  assure  him  that  to  you  the  landscape  shows  much  more 
agreeable  without  that  artifice.  AYo  be  to  the  luckless  wight 
who  does  not  only  not  respond  to  his  rapture,  but  who  should 
drop  an  unseasonable  intimation  of  preferring  one  of  his  an- 
terior bargains  to  the  present  !  The  last  is  always  his  best 
hit — his  ;'  Cynthia  of  the  minute."  Alas  !  how  many  a  mild 
Madonna  have  I  known  to  come  in — a  Raphael  !  keep  its  as- 
cendancy for  a  few  brief  moons — then  after  certain  interme- 
dial degradations,  from  the  front  drawing  room  to  the  back 
gallery,  thence  to  the  dark  parlour — adopted  in  turn  by  each 
of  the  Carracci,  under  successive  lowering  ascriptions  of  filia- 
tion, mildly  breaking  its  fall — consigned  to  the  oblivious  lum- 
ber room,  go  out  at  last  a  Lucca  Giordano,  or  plain  Carlo  Ma- 
ratti  ! — which  things  when  I  beheld,  musing  upon  the  chances 
and  mutabilities  of  fate  below,  hath  made  me  to  reflect  upon 
the  altered  condition  of  great  personages,  or  that  woful  queen 
of  Richard  the  Second — 

"  Set  forth  in  pomp, 
She  came  adorned  hither  like  sweet  May, 
Sent  back  like  Hollowmass  or  shortest  day." 

With  great  love  for  you,  J.  E.  hath  but  a  limited  sympathy 
•with  what  you  feel  or  do.  He  lives  in  a  world  of  his  own, 
and  makes  slender  guesses  at  what  passes  in  your  mind.  He 
never  pierces  the  marrow  of  your  habits.  He  will  tell  an  old-es- 
tablished playgoer,  that  Mr.  Sueh-a-one  of  So-and-so.  (naming 
one  of  the  theatres.)  is  a  very  lively  comedian — as  a  piece  <u 
news  !  He  advertised  me  but  the  oilier  day  of  some  pleasant 
green  lanes  which  he  had  found  out  for  me,  knowing  //it  to  be 
a  great  walker,  in  my  own  immediate  vicinity — who  have 
8* 


90  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

haunted  the  identical  spot  any  time  these  twenty  years  ! 
He  has  not  much  respect  for  that  class  of  feelings  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  sentimental.  He  applies  the  definition 
of  real  evil  to  bodily  sufferings  exclusively — and  rejecteth  all 
others  as  imaginary.  He  is  affected  by  the  sight,  or  the 
bare  supposition  of  a  creature  in  pain,  to  a  degree  which  I 
have  never  witnessed  out  of  womankind.  A  constitutional 
acuteness  to  this  class  of  sufferings  may  in  part  account  foi 
this.  The  animal  tribe  in  particular  he  taketh  under  his  es- 
pecial protection.  A  broken-winded  or  spur-galled  horse  is 
sure  to  find  an  advocate  in  him.  An  overloaded  ass  his 
client  for  ever.  He  is  the  apostle  to  the  brute  kind — the  never- 
failing  friend  of  those  who  have  none  to  care  for  them. 
The  contemplation  of  a  lobster  boiled,  or  eels  skinned  alive, 
will  wring  him  so,  that  "  all  for  pity  he  could  die."  It  will 
take  the  savour  from  his  palate,  and  the  rest  from  his  pillow, 
for  days  and  nights.  With  the  intense  feeling  of  Thomas 
Clarkson,  he  wanted  only  the  steadiness  of  pursuit,  and  unity 
of  purpose,  of  that  "  true  yokefellow  with  time,"  to  have  ef- 
fected as  much  for  the  animal  as  he  hath  done  for  the  negro 
creation.  But  my  uncontrollable  cousin  is  but  imperfectly 
formed  for  purposes  which  demand  co-operation.  He  cannot 
wait.  His  amelioration  plans  must  be  ripened  in  a  day.  For 
this  reason  he  has  cut  but  an  equivocal  figure  in  benevolent 
societies,  and  combinations  for  the  alleviation  of  human  suf- 
ferings. His  zeal  constantly  makes  him  to  outrun,  and  put 
diit  his  coadjutors.  He  thinks  of  relieving — while  they  think 
of  debating.  He  was  blackballed  out  of  a  society  for  the 
relief  of ,  because  the  fervour  of  his  humanity  toiled  be- 
yond the  formal  apprehension  and  creeping  processes  of  his 
associates.  I  shall  always  consider  this  distinction  as  a  pat- 
ent of  nobility  in  the  Elia  family  ! 

Do  I  mention  these  seeming  inconsistencies  to  smile  at,  or 
upbraid,  my  unique  cousin  ?  Marry,  Heaven,  and  all  good  man- 
ners and  the  understanding  that  should  be  between  kinsfolk, 
forbid  !  with  all  the  strangenesses  of  this  strangest  of  the  Elias, 
I  would  not  have  him  in  one  jot  or  tittle  other  than  he  is  ;  neither 
would  I  barter  or  exchange  my  wild  kinsman  for  the  most 
exact,  regular,  and  every  way  consistent  kinsman  breathing. 

In  my  next,  reader,  I  may  perhaps  give  you  some  account 
of  my  Cousin  Bridget — if  you  are  not  already  surfeited  with 
cousins — and  take  you  by  the  hand,  if  you  are  willing  to  go 
with  us,  on  an  excursion  which  we  made  a  summer  or  two 
since,  in  search  of  more  cousins, 

"  Through  the  green  plains  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire." 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  91 


MACKERY    END, 

IN    HERTFORDSHIRE. 

Bridget  Elia  has  been  my  housekeeper  for  many  a  long 
year.  I  have  obligations  to  Bridget,  extending  beyond  the 
period  of  memory.  We  house  together,  old  bachelor  and 
maid,  in  a  sort  of  double  singleness  ;  with  such  tolerable  com- 
fort, upon  the  whole,  that  I,  lor  one,  find  in  myself  no  sort  of 
disposition  to  go  out  upon  the  mountains,  with  the  rash  king's 
offspring,  to  bewail  my  celibacy.  We  agree  pretty  well  in 
our  tastes  and  habits — yet  so,  as  "  with  a  difference."  We 
are  generally  in  harmony,  with  occasional  bickerings,  as  it 
should  be  among  near  relations.  Our  sympathies  are  rather 
understood  than  expressed;  and  once,  upon  my  dissembling 
a  tone  in  my  voice  more  kind  than  ordinary,  my  cousin  burst 
into  tears,  and  complained  that  I  was  altered.  We  are  both 
great  readers  in  different  directions.  While  I  am  hanging 
over  (for  the  thousandth  time)  some  passage  in  old  Burton,  or 
one  of  his  strange  contemporaries,  she  is  abstracted  in  some 
modern  tale  or  adventure,  whereof  our  common  reading  table 
is  daily  fed  with  assiduously  fresh  supplies.  Narrative  teases 
me.  1  have  little  concern  in  the  progress  of  events.  She 
must  have  a  story — well,  ill,  or  indifferently  told — so  there  be 
life  stirring  in  it,  and  plenty  of  good  or  evil  accidents.  The 
fluctuations  of  fortune  in  fiction — and  almost  in  real  life — 
have  ceased  to  interest,  or  operate  but  dully  upon  me.  Out- 
of-the-way  humours  and  opinions — heads  with  some  diverting 
twist  in  them — the  oddities  of  authorship  please  me  most. 
My  cousin  has  a  native  disrelish  of  anything  that  sounds  odd 
or  bizarre.  Nothing  goes  down  with  her  that  is  quaint,  irreg- 
ular, or  out  of  the  road  of  common  sympathy.  She  "  holds 
nature  more  clever."  I  can  pardon  her  blindness  to  the  beau- 
tiful obliquities  of  the  Religio  Medici ;  but  she  must  apologize 
to  me  for  certain  disrespectful  insinuations,  which  she  has 
been  pleased  to  throw  out  latterly,  touching  the  intellectuals 
of  a  dear  favourite  of  mine,  of  the  last  century  but  one— the 
thrice  noble,  chaste,  and  virtuous — but  again  somewhat  fail- 
tastical,  and  original-brained,  generous  Margaret   Newcastle. 

It  has  been  the  lot  of  my  cousin,  often er  perhaps  than  I 
could  have  wished,  to  have  had  tor  her  associates  ami  mine, 
freethinkers — leaders  and  di$cipjes  of  novel  philosophies  and 


92  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

systems;  but  she  neither  wrangles  with,  nor  accepts,  their 
opinions.  That  which  was  good  and  venerable  to  her,  when 
a  child,  retains  its  authority  over  her  mind  still.  She  never 
juggles  or  plays  tricks  with  her  understanding. 

We  are  both  of  us  inclined  to  be  a  little  too  positive  ;  and 
I  have  observed  the  result  of  our  disputes  to  be  almost  uni- 
formly this — that  in  matters  of  fact,  dates,  and  circumstances, 
it  turns  out  that  I  was  in  the  right,  and  my  cousin  in  the 
wrong.  But  where  we  have  differed  upon  moral  points ; 
upon  something  proper  to  be  done,  or  let  alone  ;  whatever 
heat  of  opposition  or  steadiness  of  conviction  I  set  out  with,  I 
am  sure  always,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  brought  over  to  her 
way  of  thinking. 

I  must  touch  upon  the  foibles  of  my  kinswoman  with  a 
gentle  hand,  for  Bridget  does  not  like  to  be  told  of  her  faults. 
She  hath  an  awkward  trick  (to  say  no  worse  of  it)  of  reading 
in  company :  at  which  times  she  will  answer  yes  or  no  to  a 
question,  without  fully  understanding  its  purport — which  is 
provoking,  and  derogatory  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  dignity 
of  the  putter  of  the  said  question.  Her  presence  of  mind  is 
equal  to  the  most  pressing  trials  of  life,  but  will  sometimes 
desert  her  upon  trifling  occasions.  When  the  purpose  requires 
it,  and  is  a  thing  of  moment,  she  can  speak  to  it  greatly ;  but 
in  matters  which  are  not  stuff  of  the  conscience,  she  hath  been 
known  sometimes  to  let  slip  a  word  less  seasonably. 

Her  education  in  youth  was  not  much  attended  to  ;  and  she 
happily  missed  all  that  train  of  female  garniture,  which  pass- 
eth  by  the  name  of  accomplishments.  She  was  tumbled  early, 
by  accident  or  design,  into  a  spacious  closet  of  good  old 
English  reading,  without  much  selection  or  prohibition,  and 
browsed  at  will  upon  that  fair  and  wholesome  pasturage.  Had 
I  twenty  girls,  they  should  be  brought  up  exactly  in  this  fash- 
ion. I  know  not  whether  their  chance  in  wedlock  might  not 
be  diminished  by  it,  but  I  can  answer  for  it,  that  it  makes  (if 
the  worst  come  to  the  worst)  most  incomparable  old  maids. 

In  a  season  of  distress,  she  is  the  truest  comforter  ;  but  in 
the  teasing  accidents,  and  minor  perplexities,  which  do  not 
call  out  the  will  to  meet  them,  she  sometimes  maketh  matters 
worse  by  an  excess  of  participation.  If  she  does  not  always 
divide  your  trouble,  upon  the  pleasanter  occasions  of  life  she 
is  sure  always  to  treble  your  satisfaction.  She  is  excellent  to 
be  at  play  with,  or  upon  a  visit  ;  but  best  when  she  goes  a 
journey  with  you. 

We  made  an  excursion  together,  a  few  summers  since,  into 
Hertfordshire,  to  beat  up  the  quarters  of  some  of  our  less- 
known  relations  in  that  line  corn  country. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  93 

The  oldest  thing  I  remember  is  Mackery  End,  or  Mackerel 
End,  as  it  is  spelt,  perhaps  more  properly,  in  some  old  maps 
of  Hertfordshire  ;  a  Farmhouse — delightfully  situated  within  a 
gentle  walk  from  WJieaihampstead.  I  can  just  remember 
having  been  there,  on  a  visit  to  a  great  aunt,  when  I  was 
child,  under  the  care  of  Bridget ;  who,  as  I  have  said,  is  older 
than  myself  by  some  ten  years.  I  wish  1  could  throw  into  a 
heap  the  remainder  of  our  joint  existences,  that  we  might 
share  them  in  equal  division.  But  that  is  impossible.  The 
house  was  at  that  time  in  the  occupation  of  a  substantial  yeo- 
man, who  had  married  my  grandmother's  sister.  His  name 
was  Gladman.  My  grandmother  was  a  Bruton,  married  to  a 
Field.  The  Gladmans  and  the  Brutons  are  still  flourishing  in 
that  part  of  the  county,  but  the  Fields  are  almost  extinct. 
More  than  forty  years  had  elapsed  since  the  visit  I  speak  of; 
and,  for  the  greater  portion  of  that  period,  we  had  lost  sight 
of  the  other  two  branches  also.  Who  or  what  sort  of  per- 
sons inherited  Mackery  End — kindred  or  strange  folk — we 
were  afraid  almost  to  conjecture,  but  determined  some  day  to 
explore. 

By  somewhat  a  circuitous  route,  taking  the  noble  park  at 
Luton  in  our  way  from  St.  Alban's,  we  arrived  at  the  spot  of 
our  anxious  curiosity  about  noon.  The  sight  of  the  old  farm- 
house, though  every  trace  of  it  was  effaced  from  my  recollec- 
tion, affected  me  with  a  pleasure  which  I  had  not  experienced 
for  many  a  year.  For  though  /had  forgotten  it,  we  had  never 
forgotten  being  there  together,  and  we  had  been  talking 
about  Mackery  End  all  our  lives,  till  memory  on  my  part  be- 
came mocked  with  a  phantom  of  itself,  and  1  thought  1  knew 
the  aspect  of  a  place  which,  when  present,  oh  how  unlike  it 
was  to  that  which  I  had  conjured  up  so  many  times  instead 
of  it! 

Stdl  the  air  breathed  balmily  about  it ;  the  season  was  in 
the  "  heart  of  June,"  and  1  could  say  with  the  poet, 

"  But  thou,  that  didst  appear  so  fair 
To  fond  imagination, 
Dost  rival  m  the  light  of  day 
Her  delicate  creation !" 

Bridget's  was  more  a  waking  bliss  than  mine,  for  she  easily 
remembered  her  old  acquaintance  again — some  altered  fea- 
tures,  of  course,  a  little  grudged  at.  At  first,  indeed,  she  was 
ready  to  disbelieve  for  joy  ;  but  the  scene  soon  reconfirmed 
itself  in  her  affections — and  she  traversed  every  outpost  ol 
the  old  mansion,  to  the  woodhouse,  the  orchard,  the  place 
where  the  pigeon  house  had  stood,  (house  and  birds  were 


94  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

alike  flown,)  with  a  breathless  impatience  of  recognition, 
which  was  more  pardonable  perhaps  than  decorous  at  the 
age  of  fifty  odd.  But  Bridget  in  some  things  is  behind  her 
years. 

The  only  thing  left  was  to  get  into  the  house — and  that 
was  a  difficulty  which  to  me  singly  would  have  been  insur- 
mountable ;  for  I  am  terribly  shy  in  making  myself  known  to 
strangers  and  out  of  date  kinsfolk.  Love,  stronger  than 
scruple,  winged  my  cousin  in  without  me  ;  but  she  soon  re- 
turned with  a  creature  that  might  have  sat  to  a  sculptor  for 
the  image  of  Welcome.  It  was  the  youngest  of  the  Glad- 
mans  ;  who,  by  marriage  with  a  Bruton,  had  become  mistress 
of  the  old  mansion.  A  comely  brood  are  the  Brutons.  Six 
of  them,  females,  were  noted  as  the  handsomest  young  wo- 
men in  the  county.  But  this  adopted  Bruton,  in  my  mind, 
was  better  than  they  all — more  comely.  She  was  born  too 
late  to  have  remembered  me.  She  just  recollected  in  early 
life  to  have  had  her  Cousin  Bridget  once  pointed  out  to  her, 
climbing  a  stile.  But  the  name  of  kindred,  and  of  cousinship, 
was  enough.  Those  slender  ties,  that  prove  slight  as  gossa- 
mer in  the  rending  atmosphere  of  a  metropolis,  bind  faster,  as 
we  found  it,  in  hearty,  homely,  loving  Hertfordshire.  In  five 
minutes  we  were  as  thoroughly  acquainted  as  if  we  had  been 
born  and  bred  up  together  ;  were  familiar  even  to  the  calling 
each  other  by  our  Christian  names.  So  Christians  should 
call  one  another.  To  have  seen  Bridget,  and  her — it  was 
like  the  meeting  of  the  two  scriptural  cousins  !  There  was 
a  grace  and  dignity,  an  amplitude  of  form  and  stature,  answer- 
ing to  her  mind,  in  this  farmer's  wife,  which  would  have 
shined  in  a  palace — or  so  we  thought  it.  We  were  made 
welcome  by  husband  and  wife  equally — we,  and  our  friend 
that  was  with  us.  I  had  almost  forgotten  him — but  B.  F. 
will  not  so  soon  forget  that  meeting,  if  peradventure  he  shall 
read  this  on  the  far  distant  shores  where  the  kangaroo  haunts. 
The  fatted  calf  was  made  ready,  or  rather  was  already  so,  as 
if  in  anticipation  of  our  coming ;  and,  after  an  appropriate 
glass  of  native  wine,  never  let  me  forget  with  what  honest 
pride  this  hospitable  cousin  made  us  proceed  to  Wcathamp- 
stead,  to  introduce  us  (as  some  new-found  rarity)  to  her  mo- 
ther and  sister  Cladmans,  who  did  indeed  know  something 
more  of  us,  at  a  time  when  she  almost  knew  nothing.  With 
what  corresponding  kindness  we  were  received  by  them  also 
— how  Bridget's  memory,  exalted  by  the  occasion,  warmed 
into  a  thousand  half-obliterated  recollections  of  things  and 
persons,  to  my  utter  astonishment,  and  her  own — and  to  the 
astoundment  of  B.  F.,  who  sat  by,  almost  the  only  thing  that 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  95 

was  not  a  cousin  there — old  effaced  images  of  more  than  half- 
forgotten  names  and  circumstances  siill  crowding  back  upon 
her,  as  words  written  in  lemon  cume  out,  upon  exposure  to  a 
friendly  warmth — when  I  forget  nil  this,  then  may  my  country 
cousins  forget  me  ;  and  Bridget  no  more  remember,  that  in 
the  days  of  weakling  infancy  I  was  her  tender  charge — as  I 
have  been  her  care  in  foolish  manhood  since — in  those  pretty 
pastoral  walks,  long  ago,  about  Mackery  End,  in  Hertford- 
shire. 


MODERN  GALLANTRY. 

Iv  comparing  modern  with  ancient  manners,  we  are  pleased 
to  compliment  ourselves  upon  the  point  of  gallantry,  a  certain 
obsequiousness,  or  deferential  respect,  which  we  are  supposed 
to  pay  to  females,  as  females. 

I  shall  believe  that  this  principle  actuates  our  conduct, 
when  I  can  forget,  that  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  era 
from  which  we  date  our  civility,  we  are  but  just  beginning  to 
leave  off  the  very  frequent  practice  of  whipping  females  in 
public,  in  common  with  the  coarsest  male  offenders. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  influential,  when  I  can  shut  my  eyes 
to  the  fact,  that  in  England  women  are  still  occasionally — 
hanged. 

I  shall  believe  ivi  it,  when  actresses  are  no  longer  subject 
to  be  hissed  off  a  stage  by  gentlemen. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  Dorimant  hands  a  fish  wife 
across  the  kennel  ;  or  assists  the  apple  woman  to  pick  up  her 
wandering  fruit,  which  some  unlucky  dray  has  just  dissi- 
pated. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  the  Dorimants  in  humbler  life, 
who  would  be  thought  in  their  way  notable  adepts  in  this  re- 
finement, shall  act  upon  it  in  places  where  they  are  not  known, 
or  think  themselves  not  observed — when  I  shall  see  the  trav- 
eller for  some  rich  tradesman  part  with  his  admired  box- 
coat,  to  spread  it  over  the  defenceless  shoulders  of  the  poor 
woman,  who  is  passing  to  her  parish  on  the  roof  of  the  same 
stage  coach  with  him,  drenched  in  the  rain — when  I  shall  no 
longer,  see  a  woman  standing  up  in  the  pit  of  a  London  the- 
atre, till  she  is  sick  and  faint  with  the  exertion,  with  men 
about  her,  seated  at  their  ease,  and  jeering  at  her  distress; 
till  one   that  seems  to  have  more  manners  or  conscience  than 


98  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  rest,  significantly  declares  "  she  should  be  welcome  to  his 
seat,  if  she  were  a  little  younger  and  handsomer."  Place 
this  dapper  warehouseman,  or  that  rider,  in  a  circle  of  their 
own  female  acquaintance,  and  you  shall  confess  you  have  not 
seen  a  politer  bred  man  in  Lothbury. 

Lastly,  I  shall  begin  to  believe  that  there  is  some  such 
principle  influencing  our  conduct,  when  more  than  one  half 
the  drudgery  and  coarse  servitude  of  the  world  shall  cease  to 
be  performed  by  women. 

Until  that  day  comes,  I  shall  never  believe  this  boasted 
point  to  be  anything  more  than  a  conventional  fiction  :  a  pa- 
geant got  up  between  the  sexes,  in  a  certain  rank,  and  at  a 
certain  time  of  life,  in  which  both  find  their  account  equally. 
I  shall  be  even  disposed  to  rank  it  among  the  salutary  fic- 
tions of  life,  when  in  polite  circles  I  shall  see  the  same  atten- 
tions paid  to  age  as  to  youth,  to  homely  features  as  to  hand- 
some, to  coarse  complexions  as  to  clear;  to  the  woman,  as  she 
is  a  woman,  not  as  she  is  a  beauty,  a  fortune,  or  a  title. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  something  more  than  a  name,  when 
a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a  well-dressed  company  can  ad- 
vert to  the  topic  of  female  old  age  without  exciting,  and  in- 
tending to  excite,  a  sneer — when  the  phrases  "  antiquated 
virginity,"  and  such  a  one  has  "  overstood  her  market,"  pro- 
nounced in  good  company,  shall  raise  immediate  offence  in 
man,  or  woman,  that  shall  hear  them  spoken. 

Joseph  Paice,  of  Bread-street  hill,  merchant,  and  one  of 
the  directors  of  the  South-Sea  Company — the  same  to  whom 
Edwards,  the  Shakspeare  commentator,  has  addressed  a  fine 
sonnet — was  the  only  pattern  of  consistent  gallantry  I  have 
met  with.  He  took  me  under  his  shelter  at  an  early  age, 
and  bestowed  some  pains  upon  me.  I  owe  to  his  precepts 
and  example  whatever  there  is  of  the  man  of  business  (and 
that  is  not  much)  in  my  composition.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  I  did  not  profit  more.  Though  bred  a  Presbyterian,  and 
brought  up  a  merchant,  he  was  the  finest  gentleman  of  his 
time.  He  had  not  one  system  of  attention  to  females  in  the 
drawing  room,  and  another  in  the  shop,  or  at  the  stall.  I  do 
not  mean  that  he  made  no  distinction.  But  he  never  lost 
sight  of  sex,  or  overlooked  it  in  the  casualties  of  a  disadvan- 
tageous situation.  I  have  seen  him  stand  bareheaded — smile 
it'  you  please,  to  a  poor  servant  girl,  while  she  has  been  in- 
quiring of  him  the  way  to  some  street — in  such  a  posture  of 
unforced  civility,  as  neither  to  embarrass  her  in  the  accept- 
ance, nor  himself  in  the  offer,  of  it.  He  was  no  dangler,  in 
the  common  acceptation  of  the  word,  after  women  :  but  he 
reverenced  and  upheld,  in  every  form  in  which  it  came  before 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  07 

him,  womanhood.  I  have  seen  him — nay,  smile  not — tenderly 
escorting  a  market  woman,  whom  he  had  encountered  in  a 
shower,  exalting  his  umbrella  over  her  poor  basket  of  fruit, 
that  it  might  receive  no  damage,  with  as  much  carefulness  as 
if  she  had  been  a  countess.  To  the  reverend  form  of  female 
eld  he  would  yield  the  wall,  (though  it  were  to  an  ancient 
beggar  woman,)  with  more  ceremony  than  we  can  afford  to 
show  our  grandams.  He  was  the  Preux  Chevalier  of  A;."  ; 
the  Sir  Calidore,  or  Sir  Tristan,  to  those  who  have  no  Caii- 
dores  or  Tristans  to  defend  them.  The  roses,  that  had  long 
faded  thence,  still  bloomed  for  him  in  those  withered  and  vcl- 
low  cheeks. 

He  was  never  married,  but  in  his  youth  he  paid  his  ad- 
dresses to  the  beautiful  Susan  Winstanley,  old  Winstanley's 
daughter,  of  Clapton,  who,  dying  in  the  early  days  of  their 
courtship,  confirmed  in  liim  the  resolution  of  perpetual  bache- 
lorship. It  was  during  their  short  courtship,  he  told  me,  that 
he  had  been  one  day  treating  his  mistress  with  a  profusion 
of  civil  speeches — the  common  gallantries,  to  which  kind  of 
thing  she  had  hitherto  manifested  no  repugnance — but  in  this 
instance  with  no  effect,  lie  could  not  obtain  from  her  a 
decent  acknowledgment  in  return.  She  rather  seemed  to 
resent  his  compliments.  lie  could  not  set  it  down  to  caprice, 
for  the  lady  had  always  shown  herself  above  that  littleness. 
When  he  ventured  on  the  following  day,  finding  her  a  little 
better  humoured,  to  expostulate  with  her  on  her  coldness  of 
yesterday,  she  confessed,  with  her  usual  frankness,  that  she 
had  no  sort  of  dislike  to  his  attentions  ;  that  she  could  even 
endure  some  highflown  compliments  ;  that  a  young  woman 
placed  in  her  situation  had  a  right  to  expect  all  sorts  of  civil 
things  said  to  her ;  that  she  hoped  she  could  digest  a  dose 
of  adulation,  short  of  insincerity,  with  as  little  injury  to  her 
humility  as  most  young  women  ;  but  that,  a  little  before  he 
had  commenced  his  compliments,  she  had  overheard  him  by 
accident,  in  rather  rough  language,  rating  a  young  woman 
who  had  not  brought  home  his  cravats  quite  to  the  appointed 
time,  and  she  thought  to  herself,  "As  I  am  Miss  Susan  Win- 
stanley, and  a  young  lady,  a  reputed  beauty,  and  known  to  be 
a  fortune,  I  can  have  my  choice  of  the  finest  speeches  from 
the  mouth  of  this  very  line  gentleman  who  is  courting  me  ; 
but  if  1  had  been  pOOI  Mary  Such-a-one,  (naming  (he  milliner,) 
and  had  failed  of  bringing  home  the  cravats  to  the  appointed 
hour,  though  perhaps  I  had  set  up  half  the  night  to  forward 
them,  what  sort  of  compliments  should  1  have  received  then 
And  my  woman's  pride  came  to  my  assistance  ;  and  I  thought, 
that  if  it  were  only  to  do  mc  honour,  a  female,  like  myself, 
9  E 


98  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

might  have  received  handsomer  usage  ;  and  I  was  deter- 
mined not  to  accept  any  fine  speeches,  to  the  compromise  of 
that  sex,  the  belonging  to  which  was  after  all  my  strongest 
claim  and  title  to  them." 

I  think  the  lady  discovered  both  generosity  and  a  just  way 
of  thinking,  in  this  rebuke  which  she  gave  her  lover  ;  and 
I  have  sometimes  imagined,  that  the  uncommon  strain  of 
courtesy,  which  through  life  regulated  the  actions  and  be- 
haviour of  my  friend  towards  all  of  woman  kind  indiscrimi- 
nately, owed  its  happy  origin  to  this  seasonable  lesson  from 
the  lips  of  his  lamented  mistress. 

I  wish  the  whole  female  world  would  entertain  the  same 
notion  of  these  things  that  Miss  Winstanley  showed.  Then 
we  should  see  something  of  the  spirit  of  consistent  gallantry  ; 
and  no  longer  witness  the  anomaly  of  the  same  man — a  pat- 
tern of  true  politeness  to  a  wife — of  cold  contempt,  or  rude- 
ness, to  a  sister — the  idolater  of  his  female  mistress — the  dis- 
parager and  despiser  of  his  no  less  female  aunt,  or  unfortunate 
— still  female — maiden  cousin.  Just  so  much  respect  as  a 
woman  derogates  from  her  own  sex,  in  whatever  condition 
placed,  her  handmaid  or  dependant,  she  deserves  to  have 
diminished  from  herself  on  that  score  ;  and  probably  will  feel 
the  diminution,  when  youth,  and  beauty,  and  advantages,  not 
inseparable  from  sex,  shall  lose  of  their  attraction.  What  a 
woman  should  demand  of  a  man  in  courtship,  or  after  it,  is — 
first,  respect  for  her  as  she  is  a  woman  ;  and  next  to  that,  to 
be  respected  by  him  above  all  other  women.  But  let  her 
stand  upon  her  female  character  as  upon  a  foundation  ;  and 
let  the  attentions  incident  to  individual  preference,  be  so  many 
pretty  additaments  and  ornaments,  as  many  and  as  fanciful  as 
you  please,  to  that  main  structure.  Let  her  first  lesson  be, 
with  sweet  Susan  Winstanley,  to  reverence  her  sex. 


THE  OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

I  was  born,  and  passed  the  first  seven  years  of  my  life,  in 
the  Temple.  Its  church,  its  halls,  its  gardens,  its  fountain, 
its  river,  I  had  almost  said — for  in  those  young  years,  what  was 
this  king  of  rivers  to  me  but  a  stream  tbat  watered  our  pleas- 
ant places  ? — these  are  of  my  oldest  recollections.  I  repeat, 
to  this  day,  no  verses  to  myself  more  frequently,  or  with  kind- 


ESSAYS    OF    EUA.  99 

Her  emotion,  than  those  of  Spenser,  where  he  speaks  of  this 
spot. 

"  There  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers, 
The  which  on  Themmes  brode  aged  back  doth  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 
There  whylome  wont  the  Templar  knights  to  bide, 
Till  they  decayed  through  pride." 

Indeed,  it  is  the  most  elegant  spot  in  the  metropolis.  What 
a  transition  for  a  countryman  visiting  London  for  tin*  first  time 
— the  passing  from  the  crowded  Strand  or  Fleet-street,  by 
unexpected  avenues,  into  its  magnificent  ample  squares,  its 
classic  green  recesses  !  What  a  cheerful,  liberal  look,  hath 
that  portion  of  it  which,  from  three  sides,  overlooks  the  greater 
garden  :  that  goodly  pile 

"  Of  building  strong,  albeit  of  Paper  hight," 

confronting,  with  massy  contrast,  the  lighter,  older,  more  fan- 
tastically shrouded  one,  named  of  Harcourt,  with  the  cheerful 
Crown-office  Row,  (place  of  my  kindly  engendure,)  right  op- 
posite the  stately  stream,  which  washes  the  garden  foot  with 
her  yet  scarcely  trade-polluted  waters,  and  seems  but  just 
weaned  from  her  Twickenham  Naiades  !  a  man  would  give 
something  to  have  been  born  in  such  places  What  a  colle- 
giate aspect  has  that  fine  Elizabethan  hall,  where  the  foun- 
tain plays,  which  I  have  made  to  rise  and  fall  how  many 
times  !  to  the  astoundment  of  the  young  urchins,  my  contem- 
poraries, who,  not  being  able  to  guess  at  its  recondite  ma- 
chinery, were  almost  tempted  to  hail  the  wondrous  work  as 
magic  !  What  an  antique  air  had  the  now  almost  effaced  sun 
dials,  with  their  moral  inscriptions,  seeming  coevals  with  that 
time  which  they  measured,  and  to  take  their  revelations  of 
its  flight  immediately  from  heaven,  holding  correspondence 
with  the  fountain  of  light!  How  would  the  dark  line  steal 
imperceptibly  on,  watched  by  the  eye  of  childhood,  eager  to 
detect  its  movement,  never  catched,  nice  as  an  evanescent 
cloud,  or  the  first  arrests  of  sleep  ! 

"  Ah !  yet  doth  beauty  like  a  dial  hand 
Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived  !" 

What  a  dead  thing  is  a  clock,  with  its  ponderous  embowel- 
ments  of  lead  and  brass,  its  pert  or  solemn  dulness  of  com- 
munication, compared  with  the  simple  altarlike  structure,  and 
silent  heart  language  of  the  old  dial  !  It  stood  as  the  garden 
god  of  Christian  gardens.  Why  is  it  almost  everywhere  van- 
ished ?  If  its  business  use  be  superseded,  by  more  elaborate 
inventions,  its  moral  uses,  its  beautv,  might  have  pleaded  for 

E2 


100  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

its  continuance.  It  spoke  of  moderate  labours,  of  pleasures 
not  protracted  after  sunset,  of  temperance,  and  good  hours. 
It  was  the  primitive  clock,  the  horologue  of  the  first  world. 
Adam  could  scarce  have  missed  it  in  paradise.  It  was  the 
measure  appropriate  for  sweet  plants  and  flowers  to  spring  by, 
for  the  birds  to  apportion  their  silver  warblings  by,  for  flocks 
to  pasture  and  be  led  to  fold  by.  The  shepherd  "  carved 
it  out  quaintly  in  the  sun  ;"  and  turning  philosopher  by  the 
very  occupation,  provided  it  with  mottoes  more  touching  than 
tombstones.  It  was  a  pretty  device  of  the  gardener,  recorded 
by  Marvell,  who,  in  the  days  of  artificial  gardening,  made  a 
dial  out  of  herbs  and  flowers.  I  must  quote  his  verses  a  lit- 
tle higher  up,  for  they  are  full,  as  all  his  serious  poetry  was, 
of  a  witty  delicacy.  They  will  not  come  in  awkwardly,  I 
hope,  in  a  talk  of  fountains  and  sun  dials.  He  is  speaking  of 
sweet  garden  scenes. 

"  What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead ! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head. 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  jnouth  do  crash  their  wine. 
The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach. 
Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 
Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 
Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness. 
The  mind,  that  ocean,  where  each  kind 
Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find  ; 
Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 
Far  other  worlds  and  other  seas  ; 
Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 
Here  at  the  fountain's  sliding  foot, 
Or  at  some  fruit  tree's  mossy  root, 
Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 
My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide  ; 
There,  like  a  bird,  it  sits  and  sings. 
Then  wets  and  claps  its  silver  wings ; 
And,  till  prepared  lor  longer  flight, 
Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light. 
How  well  the  skilful  gardener  drew, 
Of  flowers  ami  herds,  this  dial  new  ! 
Where,  from  above,  the  milder  sun 
I  iocs  through  a  fragrant  zodiac  run  : 
And,  as  it  works,  the  industrious  bee 
Computes  lis  tune  as  well  as  we. 
How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 
Be  reckon'd,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers  V* 

The  artificial  fountains  of  the  metropolis  are,  in  like  manner, 
fast  vanishing.  Most  of  them  are  dried  up,  or  bricked  over. 
Yet,  where  one  is  left,  as  in  that  little  green  nook  behind  the 

*  From  atopy  of  verses  entitled  "  The  Garden." 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  101 

South-Sea  House,  what  a  freshness  it  gives  to  the  dreary  pile  ! 
Four  little  winged  marble  boys  used  to  play  their  virgin  fan- 
cies, spouting  out  ever-fresh  streams  from  their  innocent  n  an- 
ion lips,  in  the  square  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  when  1  was  no  bigger 
than  they  were  figured.  They  are  gone  and  the  spring  choked 
up.  The  fashion,  they  tell  me,  is  gone  by,  and  these  things  are 
esteemed  childish.  Why  not  then  gratify  children,  by  letting 
them  stand  ?  Lawyers,  1  suppose,  were  children  once.  They 
are  awakening  images  to  them  at  least.  Why  must  every 
tiling  smack  of  man  and  be  mannish  ?  Is  the  world  all  grown 
up?  Is  childhood  dead  ?  Or  is  there  not  in  the  bosoms  ot 
the  wisest  and  best  some  of  the  child's  heart  left,  to  respond 
to  its  earliest  enchantments  ?  The  figures  were  grotesque. 
Are  the  stiff-wigged  living  figures,  that  still  (litter  and  chatter 
about  that  area,  less  Gothic  in  appearance  ?  or  is  the  splutter 
of  their  hot  rhetoric  one  half  so  refreshing  and  innocent  as 
the  little  cool  playful  streams  those  exploded  cherubs  uttered  1 

They  have  lately  (.jothicizod  the  entrance  to  the  Inner  Tem- 
ple hall,  and  the  library  front,  to  assimilate  them,  I  suppose, 
to  the  body  of  the  hall,  which  they  do  not  at  all  resemble. 
What  is  become  of  the  winged  horse  that  stood  over  the 
former  ?  a  stately  arms  !  and  who  has  removed  those  frescoes 
of  the  virtues,  which  Italianized  the  end  of  the  Paper  Build- 
ings ?  my  first  hint  of  allegory  !  They  must  account  to  me 
for  these  things  which  I  miss  so  greatly. 

The  terrace  is,  indeed,  left,  which  we  used  to  call  the  pa- 
rade :  but  the  traces  are  past  away  of  the  footsteps  which 
made  its  pavement  awful !  It  is  become  common  and  profane. 
The  old  benchers  had  it  almost  sacred  to  themselves,  in  the 
fore  part  of  the  day  at  least.  They  might  not  be  sided  or 
jostled.  Their  air  and  dress  asserted  the  parade.  You  left 
wide  spaces  between  you,  when  you  passed  them.  We  walk 
on  even  terms  with  their  successors.  The  roguish  eye  of 
J — 11.  ever  ready  to  be  delivered  of  a  jest,  almost  invites  a 
stranger  to  vie  a  repartee  with  it.  But  what  insolent  familiar 
durst  have  mated  Thomas  Coventry  1  whose  person  was  a 
quadrate,  his  step  massy  and  elephantine,  his  face  square  as 
the  lion's,  his  gait  peremptory  and  pathkeeping,  indivertible 
from  his  way  as  a  moving  column,  the  scarecrow  of  his  infe- 
iors,  the  browbeater  of  equals  and  superiors,  who  made  a  sol- 
itude of  children  wherever  he  came,  for  they  fled  his  insuffer- 
able presence,  as  they  would  have  shunned  an  Eiisha  bear. 
His  growl  was  as  thunder  in  their  ears,  whether  be  spake  to 
them  in  mirth  or  in  rebuke;  bis  invitatory  notes  being,  indeed, 
of  all,  the  most  repulsive  and  horrid.  Clouds  6f  snutf,  aggra- 
vating the  natural  terrors  of  his  speech,  broke  from  eat  h  ma- 
9* 


3TXN1.  . 

QAXTT 


102  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

jestic  nostril,  darkening  the  air.  He  took  it,  not  by  pinches, 
but  a  palmful  at  once,  diving  for  it  under  the  mighty  flaps  of 
his  oldfashioned  waistcoat  pocket ;  his  waistcoat  red  and  an- 
gry ;  his  coat  dark  rapee,  tinctured  by  die  original,  and  by  ad- 
juncts, with  buttons  of  obsolete  gold.  And  so  he  paced  the 
terrace. 

By  his  side  a  milder  form  was  sometimes  to  be  seen  ;  the 
pensive  gentility  of  Samuel  Salt.  They  were  coevals,  and 
had  nothing  but  that  and  their  benchership  in  common.  In 
politics  Salt  was  a  whig,  and  Coventry  a  stanch  tory.  Many 
a  sarcastic  growl  did  the  latter  cast  out — for  Coventry  had  a 
rough  spinous  humour — at  the  political  confederates  of  his  as- 
sociate, which  rebounded  from  the  gentle  bosom  of  the  latter 
like  cannon  balls  from  wool.     You  could  not  ruffle  Samuel  Salt. 

S.  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  clever  man,  and  ot 
excellent  discernment  in  the  chamber  practice  of  the  law.  I 
suspect  his  knowledge  did  not  amount  to  much.  When  a 
case  of  difficult  disposition  of  money,  testamentary  or  other- 
wise, came  before  him,  he  ordinarily  handed  it  over  with  a 
few  instructions  to  his  man  Lovel,  who  was  a  quick  little  fel- 
low, and  would  despatch  it  out  of  hand  by  the  light  of  natural 
understanding,  of  which  he  had  an  uncommon  share.  It  was 
incredible  what  repute  for  talents  S.  enjoyed  by  the  mere  trick 
of  gravity.  He  was  a  shy  man  ;  a  child  might  pose  him  in  a 
minute — indolent  and  procrastinating  to  the  last  degree.  Yet 
men  would  give  him  credit  for  vast  application  in  spite  of 
himself.  He  was  not  to  be  trusted  with  himself  with  impu- 
nity. He  never  dressed  for  a  dinner  party  but  he  forgot  his 
sword — they  wore  swords  then — or  some  other  necessary 
part  of  his  equipage.  Lovel  had  his  eye  upon  him  on  all 
these  occasions,  and  ordinarily  gave  him  his  cue.  If  there 
was  anything  which  he  could  speak  unseasonably,  he  was 
sure  to  do  it.  He  was  to  dine  at  a  relative's  of  the  unfortunate 
Miss  Blandyon  the  day  of  her  execution;  and  L.,  who  had  a 
wary  foresight  of  his  probable  hallucinations,  before  he  set  out, 
schooled  him  with  great  anxiety  not  in  anv  possible  manner 
to  allude  to  her  story  that  day.  S.  promised  faithfully  to  ob- 
serve the  injunction.  He  had  not  been  seated  in  the  parlour, 
where  the  company  was  expecting  the  dinner  summons,  four 
minutes,  when,  a  pause  in  the  conversation  ensuing,  he  got 
up.  looked  out  of  the  window,  and  pulling  down  his  ruffles — an 
ordinary  motion  with  him — observed,  "  it  was  a  gloomy  day," 
and  added,  "  Miss  Hlandy  must  be  hanged  by  this  time,  I  sup- 
pose." Instances  of  this  sort  won;  perpetual.  Yet  S.  was 
thought  by  some  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time  a  fit  person 
to  be  consulted,  not  alone  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  law> 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  103 

but  in  the  ordinary  niceties  and  embarrassments  of  conduct 
from  force  of  manner  entirely.  He  never  laughed.  He  had 
the  same  good  fortune  among  the  female  world — was  a  known 
toast  with  the  ladies,  and  one  or  two  are  said  to  have  died 
for  love  of  him — I  suppose,  because  he  never  trifled  or  talked 
gallantry  with  them,  or  paid  them,  indeed,  hardly  common 
attentions.  He  had  a  fine  face  and  person,  but  wanted,  me- 
thought,  the  spirit  that  should  have  shown  them  off  wilh  ad- 
vantage to   the   women.     His  eye   lacked   lustre.     Not   so, 

thought  Susan  P ;  who,  at  the  advanced  age  of  sixty,  was 

seen,  in  the  cold  evening  time,  unaccompanied,  wetting  the 

pavement  of  B d  Row,  with  tears  that  fell  in  drops  which 

might  be  heard,  because  her  friend  had  died  that  day — he, 
whom  she  had  pursued  with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  last 
forty  years — a  passion,  which  years  could  not  extinguish  or 
abate ;  nor  the  long-resolved,  yet  gently-enforced,  puttings 
off  of  unrelenting  bachelorhood  dissuade  from  its  cherished 
purpose.  Mild  Susan  P — — ,  thou  hast  now  thy  friend  in 
heaven! 

Thomas  Coventry  was  a  cadet  of  the  noble  family  of  that 
name.  He  passed  his  youth  in  contracted  circumstances, 
which  gave  him  early  those  parsimonious  habits  which  in 
after  life  never  forsook  him  ;  so  that,  with  one  windfall  or 
another,  about  the  time  I  knew  him  he  was  master  of  four  or 
five  hundred  thousand  pounds  ;  nor  did  he  look,  or  walk, 
worth  a  moidore  less.  He  lived  in  a  gloomy  house  opposite 
the  pump  in  Sergeant's  Inn,  Fleet-street.  J.,  the  counsel,  is 
doing  self-imposed  penance  in  it,  for  what  reason  I  divine  not, 
at  this  day.  C.  had  an  agreeable  seat  at  North  Cray,  where 
he  seldom  spent  above  a  day  or  two  at  a  time  in  the  summer ; 
but  preferred,  during  the  hot  months,  standing  at  his  window 
in  this  damp,  close,  well-like  mansion,  to  watch,  as  he  said, 
"  the  maids  drawing  water  all  day  long."  I  suspect  he  had 
his  within-door  reasons  for  the  preference.  Hie  currus  et 
ar ma  fuer c.  He  might  think  his  treasures  more  safe.  His 
house  had  the  aspect  of  a  strong  box.  C.  was  a  close  hunks 
— a  hoarder  rather  than  a  miser — or,  if  a  miser,  none  of  the 
mad  Elwes  breed,  who  have  brought  discredit  upon  a  charac- 
ter, which  cannot  exist  without  certain  admirable  points  of 
steadiness  and  unity  of  purpose.  One  may  hate  a  true  miser, 
but  cannot,  I  suspect,  so  easily  despise  him.  By  taking  care 
of  the  pence  he  is  often  enabled  to  part  with  the  pounds,  upon 
a  scale  that  leaves  us  careless,  generous  fellows  halting  at  an 
immeasurable  distance  behind.  C.  gave  away  30,000/.  at 
once  in  his  lifetime  to  a  blind  charity.  His  housekeeping 
was  severely  looked  after,  but  he  kept  the  table  of  a  gentle- 


104  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

man.  lie  would  know  who  came  in  and -who  went  out  of 
his  house,  but  bis  kitchen  chimney  was  never  suffered  to 
freeze. 

Salt  was  lils  opposite  in  this,  as  in  all — never  knew  what 
he  was  worth  in  the  world ;  and  having  but  a  competency  for 
his  rank,  which  his  indolent  habits  were  but  little  calculated 
to  improve,  might  have  suffered  severely  if  he  had  not  had 
honest  people  about  him.  Lovel  took  care  of  everything. 
He  was  at  once  his  clerk,  his  good  servant,  his  dresser,  his 
friend,  his  "  flapper,"  his  guide,  stop  watch,  auditor,  treasurer 
He  did  nothing  without  consulting  Lovel,  or  failed  in  anythin.- 
without  expecting  and  fearing  his  admonishing.  He  put.  him 
self  almost  too  much  in  his  hands,  had  they  not  been  the 
purest  in  the  world.  He  resigned  his  title  almost  to  respect 
as  a  master,  if  L.  could  ever  have  forgotten  for  a  moment  that 
he  was  a  servant. 

I  knew  this  Lovel.  He  was  a  man  of  an  incorrigible  and 
losing  honesty.  A  good  fellow  withal,  and  "  would  strike.' 
In  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  he  never  considered  inequalities 
or  calculated  the  number  of  his  opponents.  He  once  wrested 
a  sword  out  of  the  hand  of  a  man  of  quality  that  had  drawn 
upon  him,  and  pommelled  him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it. 
The  swordsman  had  offered  insult  to  a  female — an  occasion 
upon  which  no  odds  against  him  could  have  prevented  the 
interference  of  Lovel.  He  would  stand  next  day  bareheaded 
to  the  same  person,  modestly  to  excuse  his  interference— for 
L.  never  forgot  rank,  where  something  better  was  not  con- 
cerned. L.  was  the  liveliest  little  fellow  breathing,  had  a 
face  as  gay  as  Garrick's,  whom  he  was  skid  greatly  to  resem- 
ble, (I  have  a  portrait  of  him  which  confirms  it.,)  possessed  a 
fine  turn  for  humorous  poetry — next  to  Swift  and  Prior — 
moulded  heads  in  clay  or  plaster  of  Paris  to  admiration,  by 
the  dint  of  natural  genius  merely :  turned  cribbage  boards, 
and  such  small  cabinet  toys,  to  perfection  ;  took  a  hand  at 
quadrille  or  bowls  with  equal  facility  ;  made  punch  better  than 
any  man  of  his  degree  in  England  ;  had  the  merriest  quips 
and  conceits,  and  was  altogether  as  brimful  of  rogueries  and 
inventions  as  you  could  desire.  He  was  a  brother  of  the 
angler,  moreover,  and  just  such  a  free,  hearty,  honest  compan- 
ion as  Mr.  lzaak  Walton  would  have  chosen  to  go  a  fishing 
with.  I  saw  him  in  his  old  age  and  the  decay  of  his  faculties, 
palsy  smitten,  in  the  last  sad  stage  of  human  weakness — "  a 
remnant  most  forlorn  of  what  he  was  •"  yet  even  then  his 
eye  would  light  up  on  the  mention  of  his  favourite  Garrick. 
He  was  greatest,  he  would  say,  in  Bayes — "  was  upon  the 
stage  nearly  throughout  the  whole  performance,  and  as  busy 


BSSATfl  ••!    i;i.ia.  103 

as  a  bee."     At  intervals,  too,  he  would  speak  of  his  former 

life,  and  how  lit-  came  up  ;i  Little  Spy  from  Lincoln  to  go  to 
•service,  and  how  his  mother  cried  at  parting  with  him,  and 
how  he  returned,  after  some  few  fears'  absence,  in  his  smart 
new  livery  to  see  her,  and  she  blessed  herself  at  the  change 
and  could  hardly  be  brought  to  believe  thru  it  was  "  her  own 
bairn.''  And  then,  the  excitement  subsiding,  lie  would  weep- 
till  I  have  wished  that  sad  second  childhood  might  have  9 
mother  still  to  lay  its  head  upon  her  lap,  Hut  the  common 
mother  of  us  all  m  no  long  time  after  received  him  gently 
into  hers. 

With  Coventry  and  with  Salt,  in  their  walks  upon  the  ter- 
race, most  commonly  Peter  Pierson  would  join,  to  make  up  v 
third.  They  did  not  walk  linked  arm  in  arm  in  those  days — 
''as  now  our  stout  triumvirs  sweep  the  streets" — but  generally 
with  both  hands  folded  behind  them  for  state,  or  with  one  al 
least  behind,  the  other  carrying  a  cane.  P.  was  a  benevolent 
but  not  a  prepossessing  man.  lie  had  that  in  his  face  which 
you  could  not  term  unhappiness  ;  it  rather  implied  an  incapa- 
city of  being  happy.  His  cheeks  were  colourless,  even  to 
whiteness.  His  look  was  uninviting,  resembling  (but  without 
his  sourness)  that  of  our  great  philanthropist.  I  know  that  he 
did  good  acts,  but  I  could  never  make  out  what  he  was. 
Contemporary  with  these,  but  subordinate,  was  Daines  Har- 
rington— another  oddity — he  walked  burly  and  square — in 
imitation,  I  think,  of  Coventry — howbeit  he  attained  not  to 
the  dignity  of  his  prototype.  Nevertheless,  he  did  pretty  well, 
upon  the  strength  of  being  a  tolerable  antiquarian,  and  having 
a  brother  a  bishop.  When  the  account  of  his  year's  treasure- 
ship  came  to  be  audited,  the  following  singular  charge  was 
unanimously  disallowed  by  the  bench  :  M  Item,  disbursed  Mr. 
Allen,  the  gardener,  twenty  shillings,  tor  stuff  to  poison  the 
sparrows,  by  my  orders."  Next  to  him  was  old  Harton — a 
jolly  negation,  who  took  upon  him  the  ordering  of  the  bills  ol 
fare  for  the  parliament  chamber,  where  the  benchers  dine  — 
answering  to  the  combination  rooms  at  college — much  to  the 
easement  of  his  less  epicurean  brethren.  1  know  nothing 
more  of  hiin.  Then  Read,  and  Twopenny — Head,  good  hu- 
moured and  personable — Twopeunv.  good  humoured,  but  thin, 
and  felicitous  in  jests  upon  his  own  figure.  If  T.  was  thin. 
V.'harry  was  attenuated  and  fleeting.  .Many  must  remember 
hiin  (for  he  was  rather  ef  later  date)  and  his  singular  gait, 
which  was  performed  by  three  steps  and  a  jump  rqgularly 
succeeding.  The  steps  were  little  efforts,  like  thai  of  a  child 
beginning  to  walk;  the  jump  comparatively  vigorous,  as  a  loot 
to  an  inch.     Where  he  learned  mis  figure,  or  what  occasioned 

i:  3 


106  ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A. 

it,  I  could  never  discover.  It  was  neither  graceful  in  itself, 
nor  seemed  to  answer  the  purpose  any  better  than  common 
walking.  The  extreme  tenuity  of  his  frame,  I  suspect,  set 
him  upon  it.  It  was  a  trial  of  poising.  Twopenny  would 
often  rally  him  upon  his  leanness,  and  hail  him  as  Brother 
Lusty  ;  but  W.  had  no  relish  of  a  joke.  His  features  were 
spiteful.  I  have  heard  that  he  would  pinch  his  cat's  ears  ex- 
tremely, when  anything  had  offended  him.  Jackson — the 
omniscient  Jackson  he  was  called — was  of  this  period.  He 
had  the  reputation  of  possessing  more  multifarious  knowledge 
than  any  man  of  his  time.  He  was  the  Friar  Bacon  of  the 
less  literate  portion  of  the  temple.  I  remember  a  pleasant 
passage,  of  the  cook  applying  to  him,  with  much  formality  of 
apology,  for  instructions  how  to  write  down  edge  bone  of  beef 
in  his  bill  of  commons.  He  was  supposed  to  know,  if  any 
man  in  the  world  did.  He  decided  the  orthography  to  be — 
as  I  have  given  it — fortifying  his  authority  with  such  anatom- 
ical reasons  as  dismissed  the  manciple  (for  the  time)  learned 
and  happy.  Some  do  spell  it  yet  perversely  aitch  bone,  from 
a  fanciful  resemblance  between  its  shape,  and  that  of  the 
aspirate  so  denominated.  I  had  almost  forgotten  Mingay 
with  the  iron  hand — but  he  was  somewhat  later.  He  had 
lost  his  right  hand  by  some  accident,  and  supplied  it  with  a 
grappling  hook,  which  he  wielded  with  a  tolerable  adroitness. 
I  detected  the  substitute,  before  I  was  old  enough  to  reason 
whether  it  were  artificial  or  not.  I  remember  the  astonish- 
ment it  raised  in  me.  He  was  a  blustering,  loud-talking  per- 
son ;  and  I  reconciled  the  phenomenon  to  my  ideas  as  an  em- 
blem of  power  somewhat  like  the  horns  in  the  forehead  of 
Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Baron  Maseres,  who  walks  (or 
did  till  very  lately)  in  the  costume  of  the  reign  of  George 
the  Second,  closes  my  imperfect  recollections  of  the  old 
benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple. 

Fantastic  forms,  wither  are  ye  fled  ?  Or,  if  the  like  of  you 
exist,  why  exist  they  no  more  for  me  ?  Ye  inexplicable, 
half-understood  appearances,  why  comes  in  reason  to  tear 
away  the  preternatural  mist,  bright  or  gloomy,  that  enshrouded 
you?  Why  make  ye  so  sorry  a  figure  in  my  relation,  who 
made  up  to  me — to  my  childish  eyes — the  mythology  of  the 
Temple  ?  In  those  days  I  saw  gods,  as  "  old  men  covered 
with  a  mantle,"  walking  upon  the  earth.  Let  the  dreams  of 
classic  idolatry  perish — extinct  be  the  farie3  and  fairy  trum- 
pery of  legendary  fabling — in  the  heart  of  childhood  there 
will  for  ever  spring  up  a  well  of  innocent  or  wholesome  su- 
perstition—the seeds  of  exaggeration  will  lie  busy  there,  and 
vital — from  everyday  forms  educing  the  unknown  and  the  un- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  107 

common.  In  that  little  Goshen  there  will  be  light,  when  the 
grown  world  flounders  about  irrthe  darkness  of  sense  and 
materiality.  While  childhood,  and  while  dreams,  reducing 
childhood,  shall  be  left,  imagination  shall  not  have  spread  her 
holy  wings  totally  to  fly  the  earth. 

P.  S.  I  have  done  injustice  to  the  soft  shade  of  Samuel 
Salt.  See  what  it  is  to  trust  to  imperfect  memory,  and  the 
erring  notices  of  childhood  !  Yet  1  protest  I  always  thought 
that  he  had  been  a  bachelor  !  This  gentleman,  R.  N.  informs 
me,  married  young,  and  losing  his  lady  in  childbed,  within 
the  first  year  of  their  union,  fell  into  a  deep  melancholy,  from 
the  effects  of  which,  probably,  he  never  thoroughly  recovered. 
In  what  a  new  light  does  this  place   his  rejection  (oh  call  it 

by  a  gentler  name!)  of  mild  Susan  P ,  unravelling  into 

beauty  certain  peculiarities  of  this  very  shy  and  retiring  char- 
acter !  Henceforth  let  no  one  receive  the  narratives  of  Elia 
for  true  records !  They  are,  in  truth,  but  shadows  of  fact — 
verisimilitudes,  not  verities — or  sitting  but  upon  the  remote 
edges  and  outskirts  of  history.  He  is  no  such  honest  chron- 
icler as  R.  N.,  and  would  have  done  better  perhaps  to  have 
consulted  that  gentleman,  before  he  sent  these  incondite  rem- 
iniscences to  press.  But  the  worthy  sub-treasurer — who 
respects  his  old  and  his  new  masters — would  but  have  been 
puzzled  at  the  indecorous  liberties  of  Elia.  The  good  man 
wots  not,  peradventure,  of  the  license  which  magazines  have 
arrived  at  in  this  plain-speaking  age,  or  hardly  dreams  of 
their  existence  beyond  the  Gentleman 's — his  farthest  monthly 
excursions  in  this  nature  having  been  long  confined  to  the 
holy  ground  of  honest  Urban's  obituary.  May  it  be  long 
before  his  own  name  shall  help  to  swell  those  columns  of  un- 
iiivicd  flattery!  Meantime,  oil  ye  new  benchers  of  the 
Inner  Temple,  cherish  him  kindly,  for  he  is  himself  the  kind- 
liest of  human  creatures.  Should  infirmities  overtake  him — 
he  is  yet  in  green  and  vigorous  senility — make  allowances 
lor  them,  remembering  that  ,4ye  yourselves  are  old."  So 
may  the  winged  horse,  your  ancient  badge  and  cognizance, 
still  flourish!  so  may  future  Hookers  and  Seldens  illustrate 
your  church  and  chambers !  so  may  the  sparrows,  in  default 
of  more  melodious  choristers,  unpoisoned  hop  about  your 
walks',  so  may  the  fresh-coloured  and  cleanly  nursery  maul, 
who,  by  leave,  airs  her  playful  charge  in  your  stately  gardens, 
drop  her  prettiest  blushing  courtesy  as  ye  pass,  reductive  of 
juvenescent  emotion  !  so  may  the  younkers  of  this  generation 
«ve  you,  pacing  voiir  stalely  let  rue.  with  the  same  supersti- 
tious veneration  with  which  tie  child  Elia  gazed  on  the  old 
worthies  that  solemnized  the  parade  before  you  ! 


108  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA, 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 

The  custom  of  saying  grace  at  meals  had,  probably,  its 
origin  in  the  early  times  of  the  world,  and  the  hunter  state  of 
man,  when  dinners  were  precarious  things,  and  a  full  meal 
was  something  more  than  a  common  blessing  ;  when  a  belly- 
ful was  a  windfall,  and  looked  like  a  special  providence.  In 
the  shouts  and  triumphal  songs  with  which,  after  a  season  of 
sharp  abstinence,  a  lucky  booty  of  deer's  or  goat's  flesh 
would  naturally  be  ushered  home,  existed,  perhaps, the  germe 
of  the  modern  grace.  It  is  not  otherwise  easy  to  be  under- 
stood why  the  blessing  of  food  — the  act  of  eating — should 
have  had  a  particular  expression  of  thanksgiving  annexed  to 
it,  distinct  from  that  implied  and  silent  gratitude  with  which 
we  are  expected  to  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of  the  many 
other  various  gifts  and  good  things  of  existence. 

I  own  that  I  am  disposed  to  say  grace  upon  twenty  other 
occasions  in  the  course  of  the  day  besides  my  dinner.  I 
want  a  form  for  setting  out  upon  a  pleasant  walk,  for  a  moon- 
light ramble,  for  a  friendly  meeting,  or  a  solved  problem 
AVhy  have  we  none  for  books,  those  spiritual  repasts  — a  grace 
before  Milton — a  grace  before  Shakspeare — a  devotional  ex- 
ercise proper  to  be  said  before  reading  the  Fairy  Queen  I — but 
the  received  ritual  having  prescribed  these  forms  to  the  soli- 
tary ceremony  of  manducation,  I  shall  confine  my  observa- 
tions to  the  experience  which  1  have  had  of  the  grace,  prop- 
erly so  called  ;  commending  mv  new  scheme  for  extension 
to  a  niche  in  the  grand  philosophical,  poetical,  and  perchance 
in  part  heretical  liturgy,  now  compiling  by  my  friend  Homo 
Humanus,  for  the  use  of  a  certain  snug  congregation  of  Uto- 
pian Rabelaesian  Christians,  no  matter  where  assembled. 

The  form, then,  of  the  benediction  before  eating  has  its 
beauty  at  a  poor  man's  table, oratthesimpletlieunprovocaiiv 
repasts  of  children.  It  is  here  that  the  grace  becomes  ex- 
ceedingly graceful.  The  indigent  man,  who  hardly  knows, 
whether  he  shall  have  a  meal  the  next  day  or  not,  sits  down 
to  his  fare  with  a  present  sense  of  the  blessingj  which  can 
be  but  feebly  acted  by  the  rich,  into  whose  minds  the  cone  ; 
tion  of  wanting  a  dinner  could  never,  but  by  some  extreme 
theory,  have  entered.  The  proper  end  of  food,  the  anim a  I 
sustenance,  is  barely  contemplated  by  them.     The  poor  man's 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  109 

bread  is  his  daily  bread,  literally  his  bread  for  the  day.  Their 
courses  are  perennial. 

Again,  the  plainest  diet  seems  the  fittest  to  be  preceded  by 
the  grace.  That  which  is  Least  stimulative  to  appetite,  leaves 
the  mind  most  free  for  foreign  considerations,  A  man  may 
feel  thankful,  heartily  thankful,  over  a  dish  of  plain  mutton 
with  turnips,  and  have  leisure  to  reflect  upon  the  ordinance 
and  institution  of  eating  ;  when  he  shall  confeu  a  perturba- 
tion of  mind,  inconsistent  with  the  purposes  of  the  grace,  at 
the  presence  of  venison  or  turtle.  When  I  have  sat  a  runm 
kosjHes)  at  rich  men's  tables,  with  the  savoury  soup  and  messes 
steaming  up  the  nostrils,  and  moistening  the  lips  of  the  guests 
with  desire  and  a  distracted  choice,  I  have-  felt  the  introduc- 
tion of  that  ceremony  to  be  unseasonable.  With  the  rawn- 
ous  orgasm  upon  you,  it  seems  impertinent  (o  interpose  a  re- 
IjgOus  sentiment.  It  is  a  confusion  of  purpose  to  mutter  out 
praises  from  a  mouth  that  waters.  The  heats  of  epicurism 
put  out  the  gentle  flame  of  devotion.  The  incense  whi<  h 
rises  round  is  pagan,  and  the  belly  god  intercepts  it  for  his 
own.  The  very  excess  of  the  provision  beyond  the  needs 
takes  away  all  sense  of  proportion  between  the  end  and 
means.  The  Giver  is  veiled  by  his  gifts.  You  are  startled 
at  the  injustice  of  returning  thanks — for  what?  for  having  too 
much,  while  so  many  starve.      It  is  to  praise  the  gods  amiss. 

I  have  observed  this  awkwardness  felt,  scarce  consciously 
perhaps,  by  the  good  man  who  says  the  grace.  I  have  seej) 
it  in  clergymen  and  others — a  sort  of  shame — a  sense  of  the 
copresence  of  circumstances  which  unhallow  the  blessing. 
After  a  devotional  tone  put  on  for  a  few  seconds,  how  rapidlv 
the  speaker  will  fall  into  his-  common  voice,  helping  hirnsi  If 
or  his  neighbour,  as  if  to  get  rid  of  some  uneasy  sensation  of 
hypocrisy.  Not  that  the  good  man'  was  a  hypocrite,  or  was 
not  most  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  the  duty  ;  but  he 

lei;  in  his  inmost  mind  the  incompatibility  of  the  scene  and 
the  viands  before  him  with  the  exercise  of  a  calm  and  rational 
gratitude. 

I  hear  somebody  exclaim,  Would  you  have  Christians  sit 
down  at  table,  like  hogs  to  their  troughs,  without  remembering 
the  Giver  ?  no — I  would  have  them  sit  down  as  Christians,  re- 
membering the  Giver,  and  less  like  hogs.  Or  if  their  appe- 
tites must  run  riot,  and  they  must  pamper  themselves  w.ilij 
d(  licaeies  for  which  sasl  and  west  are  ransacked,  1  would 
have  them  postpone  their  benedietion  to  a  filter  season,  when 
appetite  is  laid  ;  when  the  still  small  voice  i  an  be  heard,  and 
the  reason  of  the  grace  returns — with  temp. Tale  diet  and  re- 
stricted dishes.  Gluttony  and  surfeiting  are 
10 


110  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

sions  for  thanksgiving.  When  Jeshurun  waxed  fat,  we  read 
that  he  kicked.  Virgil  knew  the  harpy  nature  better,  when 
he  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cetano  anything  but  a  blessing. 
We  may  be  gratefully  sensible  of  the  deliciousness  of  some 
kinds  of  food  beyond  others,  though  that  is  a  meaner  and  in- 
ferior gratitude  :  but  the  proper  object  of  the  grace  is  suste- 
nance, not  relishes  ;  daily  bread,  not  delicacies ;  the  means 
of  life,  and  not  the  means  of  pampering  the  carcass.  With 
what  frame  of  composure,  I  wonder,  can  a  city  chaplain  pro- 
nounce his  benediction  at  some  great  hall  feast,  when  he 
knows  that  his  last  concluding  pious  word — and  that,  in  all 
probability,  the  sacred  name  which  he  preaches — is  but  the 
signal  for  so  many  impatient  harpies  to  commence  their  foul 
orgies,  with  as  little  sense  of  true  thankfulness  (which  is  tem- 
perance) as  those  Virgilian  fowl  !  It  is  well  if  the  good  man 
himself  does  not  feel  his  devotions  a  little  clouded,  those 
foggy  sensuous  steams  mingling  with  and  polluting  the  pure 
altar  sacrifice. 

The  severest  satire  upon  full  tables  and  surfeits  is  the 
oanquet  which  Satan,  in  the  Paradise  Regained,  provides  for 
i  temptation  in  the  wilderness  : — 

"  A  table  richly  spread  in  regal  mode, 
With  dishes  piled,  and  meats  of  noblest  sort 
And  savour;  beasts  of  chace,  or  fowl  of  game, 
In  pastry  built,  or  from  the  spit,  or  boiled, 
Gris-amber  steamed  ;  all  fish  from  sea  or  shore, 
Freshet  or  purling  brook,  for  which  was  drained 
Pontus,  and  Lucrine  bay,  and  Afric  coast." 

The  tempter,  I  warrant  you,  thought  these  cates  would  go 
nvn  without  the  recommendatory  preface  of  a  benediction, 
hey  are  like  to  be  short  graces  where  the  devil  plays  the 
host.  I  am  afraid  the  poet  wants  his  usual  decorum  in  this 
place.  Was  he  thinking  of  the  old  Roman  luxury,  or  of  <j 
gaudy  day  at  Cambridge  ?  This  was  a  temptation  fitter  for 
Heliogabalus.  The  whole  banquet  is  too  civic  and  culinary, 
and  the  accompaniments  altogether  a  profanation  of  that  deep, 
abstracted,  holy  scene.  The  mighty  artillery  of  sauces, 
which  the  cook  fiend  conjures  up,  is  out  of  proportion  to  the 
simple  wants  and  plain  hunger  of  the  guest.  He  that  dis- 
turbed him  in  his  dreams,  from  his  dreams  might  have  been 
taught  better.  To  the  temperate  fantasies  of  the  famished 
Son  of  God,  what  sort  of  feasts  presented  themselves  ?  Ho 
dreamed  indeed, 

"  As  appetite  is  wont  to  dream, 
Of  meats  and  drinks,  nature's  refreshment  uwcet." 


ESSAYS   OF    ELIA.  1  1  1 

But  what  meats  ? — 

"  Him  thought,  he  by  the  brook  of  Clierith  stood, 
And  saw  the  ravens  with  their  horny  beaks 
Food  to  Elijah  bringing,  even  and  morn  ; 
Though  ravenous,  taught  to  abstain  from  what  they  brought . 
He  saw  the  prophet  also  how  he  lied 
Into  the  desert,  and  how  there  he  slept 
Under  a  juniper ;  then  how  awaked 
He  found  his  supper  on  the  coals  prepared, 
And  by  the  angel  was  bid  rise  and  eat, 
And  ate  the  second  time  alter  repose. 
The  strength  whereof  sufficed  him  forty  days  : 
Sometimes,  that  with  Elijah  he  partook, 
Or  as  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse." 

Nothing  in  Milton  is  finelier  fancied  than  these  temperate 
dreams  of  the  divine  hungerer.  To  which  of  these  two  vis- 
ionary banquets,  think  you,  would  the  introduction  of  what 
is  called  the  grace  have  been  most  fitting  and  pertinent  1 

Theoretically  I  am  no  enemy  to  graces  ;  but  practically  I 
own  that  (before  meat  especially)  they  seem  to  involve  some- 
thing awkward  and  unseasonable.  Our  appetites,  of  one  or 
another  kind,  are  excellent  spurs  to  our  reason,  which  might 
otherwise  but  feebly  set  about  the  great  ends  of  preserving 
and  continuing  the  species.  They  are  fit  blessings  to  be 
contemplated  at  a  distance  with  a  becoming  gratitude  ;  but 
the  moment  of  appetite  (the  judicious  reader  will  apprehend 
me)  is,  perhaps,  the  least  fit  season  for  that  exercise.  The 
Quakers,  who  go  about  their  business,  of  every  description, 
with  more  calmness  than  we,  have  more  title  to  the  use  of 
these  benedictory  prefaces.  I  have  always  admired  their  si- 
lent grace,  and  the  more  because  I  have  observed  their  ap- 
plications to  the  meat  and  drink  following  to  be  less  passionate 
and  sensual  than  ours.  They  are  neither  gluttons  nor  wine- 
bibbers  as  a  people.  They  eat,  as  a  horse  bolts  his  chopped 
hay,  with  indifference,  calmness,  and  cleanly  circumstances. 
They  neither  grease  nor  slop  themselves.  When  I  see  a 
citizen  in  his  bib  and  tucker,  I  cannot  imagine  it  a  surplice. 

I  am  no  Quaker  at  my  food.  I  confess  I  am  not  indifferent 
to  the  kinds  of  it.  Those  unctuous  morsels  of  deer's  flesh 
were  not  made  to  be  received  with  dispassionate  services.  I 
hate  a  man  who  swallows  it,  affecting  not  to  know  what  he 
is  eating.  I  suspect  his  taste  in  higher  matters.  I  shrink 
instinctively  from  one  who  professes  to  like  mi  need  \  '<■  il. 
There  is  a  physiognomical  character  in  the  tastes  lor  food. 

C holds  that  a  man  cannot  have  a  pure  mind  who  refuses 

apple  dumplings.  1  am  not  certain  but  he  is  right.  With  the 
deca\  of  rh)  lirM  innocence,  1  confess  a  less  ami  less  relish 
fatly  for  those  innocuous  cates      The  whole  vegetable  iHbe 


112  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

have  lost  their  gust  with  me.  Only  I  stick  to  asparagus, 
which  still  seems  to  inspire  gentle  thoughts.  I  am  impatient 
and  querulous  under  culinary  disappointments  ;  as,  to  come 
home  at  the  dinner  hour,  for  instance,  expecting  some  savoury 
mess,  and  to  find  one  quite  tasteless  and  sapidless.  Butter 
ill  melted — that  commonest  of  kitchen  failures — puts  me  be- 
side my  tenour.  The  author  of  the  Rambler  used  to  make 
inarticulate  animal  noises  over  a  favourite  food.  Was  this 
the  music  quite  proper  to  be  preceded  by  the  grace  1  or  would 
the  pious  man  have  done  better  to  postpone  his  devotions  to  a 
season  when,  the  blessing  might  be  contemplated  with  less 
perturbation  ?  I  quarrel  with  no  man's  tastes,  nor  would  set 
my  thin  face  against  those  excellent  things,  in  their  way,  jol- 
lity and  feasting.  But  as  these  exercises,  however  laudable, 
have  little  in  them  of  grace  or  gracefulness,  a  man  should  be 
sure,  before  he  ventures  so  to  grace  them,  that  while  he  is 
pretending  his  devotions  otherwhere,  he  is  not  secretly  kissing 
his  hand  to  some  great  fish — his  Dagon — with  a  special  con- 
secration of  no  ark  but  the  fat  tureen  before  him.  Graces  are 
the  sweet  preluding  strains  to  the  banquets  of  angels  and 
children  ;  to  the  roots  and  severer  repasts  of  the  Chartreuse  ; 
to  the  slender,  but  not  slenderly  acknowledged,  refection  of 
the  poor  and  humble  man  :  but  at  the  heaped-up  boards  of 
the  pampered  and  the  luxurious,  they  become  of  dissonant 
mood,  less  timid  and  tuned  to  the  occasion,  methinks,  than 
the  noise  of  those  better  befitting  organs  would  be,  which 
children  hear  tales  of,  at  Hog's  Norton.  We  sit  too  long  at 
our  meals,  or  are  too  curious  in  the  study  of  them,  or  too 
disordered  in  our  application  to  them,  or  engross  too  great  a 
portion  of  those  good  things  (which  should  be  common)  to 
our  share,  to  be  able  with  any  grace  to  say  grace.  To  be 
thankful  for  what  we  grasp  exceeding  our  proportion  is  to 
add  hypocrisy  to  injustice.  A  lurking  sense  of  this  truth  is 
what  makes  the  performance  of  this  duty  so  cold  and  spirit- 
less a  service  at  most  tables.  In  houses  where  the  grace  is 
as  indispensable  as  the  napkin,  who  has  not  seen  that  never- 
settled  question  arise,  as  to  who  shall  say  it ;  while  the  good 
man  of  the  house  and  the  visiter  clergyman,  or  some  other 
guest  be  like  of  next  authority  from  years  or  gravity,  shall 
he  bandying  about  the  office  between  them  as  a  matter  of 
compliment,  each  of  them  not  unwilling  to  shift  the  awkward 
burdtin  of!  an  equivocal  duty  from  his  own  shoulders. 

I  once  drunk  tea  in  company  with  two  Methodist  divines 
of  different  persuasions,  whom  it  was  my  fortune  to  introduce 
to  each  oilier  for  the  first,  time  thai  evening.  Before  tin;  first 
cun  was  handed  round,  one  of  these  reverend  gentlemen  put 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  113 

it  to  the  other,  with  all  due  solemnity,  whether  he  chose  to 
say  anything.  It  seems  it  is  the  custom  with  some  sectaries 
to  put  up  a  .short  prayer  before  tins  meal  also.  II is  reverend 
brother  did  not  at  first  quite  apprehend  him  ;  hut  upon  an  ex- 
planation, with  little  less  importance  lit;  made  answer,  that 
it  was  not  a  custom  known  in  his  church  :  in  Which  courteous 
evasion  the  other  aCqutescing  lor  good  manners1  sake,  or  in 
compliance  with  a  weak  brother,  the  supplementary  or  tea 
grace  was  waived  altogether.  With  what  spirit  night  not 
Lucian  have  painted  two  priests,  of  his  religion,  playing  into 
ei'-h  other's  hands  the  compliment  of  performing  or  omitting 
a  sacrifice — the  hungry  god  meantime,  doubtful  of  his  in- 
cense-, with  expectant  nostrils  hovering  over  the  two  flamens, 
and  (as  between"  two  stools)  going  away  in  the  end  without 
his  supper. 

A  short  form  upon  these  occasions  is  felt  to  want  reverence  ; 
a  long  one.  1  am  afraid,  cannot  escape  the  charge  of  imper- 
tinence. 1  do  not  quite  approve  of  the  epigrammatic  concise- 
ness with  which  that  equivocal  wag,  (but  my  pleasant  school- 
fellow,) C.  V.  L.,  when  importuned  for  a  grace,  used  to  in- 
quire, first  slyly  leering  down  the  table,  "  Is  there  no  clergy- 
man here?" — significantly  adding,  "  thank  G — d."  Nor  do  I 
think  our  old  '"iin  at  school  quite  pertinent,  where  we  were 
used  to  preface  our  bald,  bread  and  cheese  suppers  with  a 
preamble,  connecting  with  that  humble  blessing  a  recognition 
of  benefits  the  most  awful  and  overwhelming  to  the  imagina- 
tion which  religion  has  to  offer.  Non  tunc  tilts  erat  locus.  I 
remember  we  were  put  to  it  to  reconcile  the  phrase  "  good 
creatures,"  upon  which  the  blessing  rested,  with  the  fare  set 
before  us,  wilfully  understanding  that  expression  in  a  low  and 
animal  sense — till  some  one  recalled  a  legend,  which  told 
how  in  the  golden  days  of  Christ's,  the  young  hospitallers 
were  wont  to  have  smoking  joints  of  roast  meat  upon  their 
nigfatly  boards,  till  some  pious  benefactor,  commiserating  the 
decencies,  rather  than  the  palates,  of  the  children,  commuted 
our  flesh  for  garments,  and  gave  us — horresco  refcrens — trou- 
sers instead  of  mutton. 
10* 


114  ESSAYS    OF    ELTA. 


MY  FIRST  PLAY. 


At  the  north  end  of  Cross  Court  there  yet  stands  a  portai, 
of  some  architectural  pretensions,  though  reduced  to  humble 
use — serving  at  present  for  an  entrance  to  a  printing  office. 
This  old  doorway,  if  you  are  young,  reader,  you  may  not 
know  was  the  identical  pit  entrance  to  Old  Drury — Garrick's 
Drury — all  of  it  that  is  left.  I  never  pass  it  without  shaking 
some  forty  years  from  oft'  my  shoulders,  recurring  to  the  eve- 
ning when  I  passed  through  it  to  see  my  first  play.  The  after- 
noon had  been  wet,  and  the  condition  of  our  going  (the  elder 
folks  and  myself)  was,  that  the  rain  should  cease.  With  what 
a  beating  heart  did  I  watch  from  the  window  the  puddles,  from 
the  stillness  of  which  I  was  taught  to  prognosticate  the  de- 
sired cessation  !  I  seem  to  remember  the  last  spirt,  and  the 
glee  with  which  I  ran  to  announce  it. 

We  went  with  orders,  which  my  godfather  F.  had  sent  us. 
He  kept  the  oil  shop  (now  Davies')  at  the  corner  of  Feather- 
stone  Building,  in  Holborn.  F.  was  a  tall  grave  person,  lofty 
in  speech,  and  had  pretensions  above  his  rank.  He  associ- 
ated in  those  days  with  John  Palmer,  the  comedian,  whose 
gait  and  bearing  he  seemed  to  copy  ;  if  John  (which  is  quite 
as  likely)  did  not  rather  borrow  somewhat  of  his  manner  from 
my  godfather.  He  was  also  known  to,  and  visited  by  Sheri- 
dan. It  was  to  his  house  in  Holborn  that  young  Brinsley 
brought  his  first  wife  on  her  elopement  with  him  from  a  board- 
ing school  at  Bath — the  beautiful  Maria  Linley.  My  parents 
were  present  (over  a  quadrille  table)  when  he  arrived  in  the 
evening  with  his  harmonious  charge.  From  either  of  these 
connections,  it  may  be  inferred,  that  my  godfather  could  com- 
mand an  order  for  the  then  Drury  Lane  Theatre  at  pleasure — 
and,  indeed,  a  pretty  liberal  issue  of  those  cheap  billets,  in 
Brinsley's  easy  autograph,  I  have  heard  him  say  was  the  sole 
remuneration  which  he  had  received  for  many  years'  nightly 
illumination  of  the  orchestra,  and  various  avenues  of  that 
theatre— and  he  was  content  it  should  be  so.  The  honour 
of  Sheridan's  familiarity — or  supposed  familiarity — was  bet- 
ter to  my  godfather  than  money. 

F.  was  the  most  gentlemanly  of  oilmen  ;  grandiloquent  yet 
courteous.  His  delivery  of  the  commonest  matters  of  fact 
was  Ciceronian.  He  had  two  Latin  words  almost  constantly 
in  his  mouth,  (how  odd  sounds  Latin  from  an  oilman's  lips  \) 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  1  15 

which  my  better  knowledge  since  has  enabled  me  to  correct. 
In  strict  pronunciation,  they  should  have  been  sounded  vice 
versa ;  but  in  those  young  years  they  impressed  me  with 
more  awe  than  they  would  now  do,  read  aright  from  Seneca 
or  Varro — in  his  own  peculiar  pronunciation,  monosyllabically 
elaborated,  or  Anglicized,  into  something  like  verse  verse.  By 
an  imposing  manner,  and  the  help  of  these  distorted  syllables, 
he  climbed  (but  that  was  little)  to  the  highest  parochial  hon- 
ours which  St.  Andrew's  has  to  bestow. 

He  is  dead — and  thus  much  I  thought  due  to  his  memory, 
both  for  my  first  orders,  (little  wondrous  talismans ! — slight 
keys,  and  insignificant  to  outward  sight,  but  opening  to  me 
more  than  Arabian  paradises !)  and,  moreover,  that  by  his 
testamentary  beneficence  I  came  into  possession  of  the  only 
landed  property  which  I  could  ever  call  my  own — situate  near 
the  roadway  village  of  pleasant  Puckeridge,  in  Hertfordshire. 
When  I  journeyed  down  to  take  possession,  and  planted  foot 
on  my  own  ground,  the  stately  habits  of  the  donor  descended 
upon  me,  and  I  strode  (shall  1  confess  the  vanity  ?)  with  larger 
paces  over  my  allotment  of  three  quarters  of  an  acre,  with  its 
commodious  mansion  in  the  midst,  with  the  feeling  of  an  Eng- 
lish freeholder,  that  all  between  sky  and  centre  was  my  own. 
The  estate  has  passed  into  more  prudent  hands,  and  nothing 
but  an  agrarian  can  restore  it. 

In  those  days  were  pit  orders — beshrew  the  uncomfortable 
manager  who  abolished  them  ! — with  one  of  these  we  went. 
I  remember  the  waiting  at  the  door — not  that  which  is  left — 
but  between  that  and  an  inner  door  in  shelter — oh,  when  shall 
I  be  such  an  expectant  again ! — with  the  cry  of  nonpareils, 
an  indispensable  playhouse  accompaniment  in  those  days. 
As  near  as  I  can  recollect,  the  fashionable  pronunciation  of 
the  theatrical  fruiteresses  then  was,  "  Chase  some  oranges, 
chase  some  numparels,  chase  a  bill  of  the  play  ;" — chase  pro 
choose.  But  when  we  got  in,  and  I  beheld  the  green  curtain 
that  veiled  a  heaven  to  my  imagination,  which  was  soon  tj 
be  disclosed — the  breathless  anticipations  I  endured  !  I  had 
seen  something  like  it  in  the  plate  prefixed  to  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  in  Rowe's  Shakspeare — the  tent  scene  with  Dio- 
mede — and  a  sight  of  that  plate  can  always  bring  back  in  a 
measure  the  feeling  of  that  evening.  The  boxes  at  that  time, 
full  of  well-dressed  women  of  quality,  projected  over  the  pit ; 
and  the  pilasters  reaching  down  were  adorned  with  a  glister- 
ing substance  (I  know  not  what)  under  glass,  (as  it  seemed,) 
resembling — a  homely  fancy — but  I  judged  it  to  be  sugaj 
randv— vet,  to  my  raised  imagination,  divested  of  its  homeliei 
qualities,  it  appeared  a  glorified  candy  !     The  orchestra  lights 


116  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

at  length  arose,  those  "  fair  Auroras  !"  Once  the  bell  sounded. 
It  was  to  ring  out  yet  once  again — and,  incapable  of  the  anti- 
cipation, I  reposed  my  shut  eyes  in  a  sort  of  resignation  upon 
the  maternal  lap.  It  rang  the  second  time.  The  curtain  drew 
up — I  was  not  past  six  years  old — and  the  play  was  Artaxerxes ! 

I  had  dabbled  a  little  in  the  Universal  History — the  ancient 
part  of  it — and  here  was  the  court  of  Persia.  It  was  being 
admitted  to  a  sight  of  the  past.  I  took  no  proper  interest  in 
the  action  going  on,  for  1  understood  not  its  import — but  I 
heard  the  word  Darius,  and  I  was  in  the  midst  of  Daniel. 
All  feeling  was  absorbed  in  vision.  Gorgeous  vests,  gardens, 
palaces,  princesses,  passed  before  me.  I  knew  not  players. 
I  was  in  Persepolis  for  the  time  ;  and  the  burning  idol  of  their 
devotion  almost  converted  me  into  a  worshipper.  I  was  awe- 
struck, and  believed  those  significations  to  be  something  more 
than  elemental  fires.  It  was  all  enchantment  and  a  dream 
No  such  pleasure  has  since  visited  me  but  in  dreams.  Harle- 
quin's Invasion  followed  ;  where,  I  remember,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  magistrates  into  reverend  beldams  seemed  to  me 
a  piece  of  grave  historic  justice,  and  the  tailor  carrying  his 
own  head  to  be  as  sober  a  verity  as  the  legend  of  St.  Denys. 

The  next  play  to  which  I  was  taken  was  the  Lady  of  the 
Manor,  of  which,  with  the  exception  of  some  scenery,  very 
faint  traces  are  left  in  my  memory.  It  was.  followed  by  a 
pantomime,  called  Lun's  Ghost— a  satiric  touch,  I  apprehend, 
upon  Rich,  not  long  since  dead — but,  to  my  apprehension, 
(too  sincere  for  satire,)  Lun  was  as  remote  a  piece  of  antiquity 
as  Lud — the  father  of  a  line  of  harlequins — transmitting  his 
dagger  of  lath  (the  wooden  sceptre)  through  countless  ages. 
I  saw  the  primeval  Motley  come  from  his  silent  tomb  in  a 
ghastly  vest  of  white  patchwork,  like  the  apparition  of  a  dead 
rainbow.     So  harlequins  (thought  I)  look  when  they  are  dead. 

My  third  play  followed  in  quick  succession.  It  was  the 
Way  of  the  World.  1  think  I  must  have  sat  at  it  as  grave  as 
a  judge  ;  for,  I  remember,  the  hysteric  affectations  of  good 
Lady  Wishfort  affected  me  like  some  solemn  tragic  passion. 
Robinson  Crusoe  followed ;  in  which  Crusoe,  man  Friday, 
and  the  parrot,  were  as  good  and  authentic  as  in  the  story. 
The  clownery  and  pantaloonery  of  these  pantomimes  have 
clean  passed  out  of  my  head.  I  believe  I  no  more  laughed  at 
l hem  than  at  the  same  aye  I  should  have  been  disposed  to 
laugh  at  the  grotesque  Gothic  heads  (seeming  to  me  then 
replete  with  devout  meaning)  that  gape  and  grin,  in  stone, 
around  the  inside  of  the  Old  Round  Church  (my  church)  of 
the  Templars. 

I  saw  these  plays  in  the  season  1781-2,  when  I  was  from 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  117 

six  to  seven  years  old.  After  the  intervention  of  six  or  seven 
other  years,  (for  at  school  all  playgoing  was  inhibited,)  1 
again  entered  the  doors  of  a  theatre.  That  old  Artaxerxes 
evening  had  never  done  ringing  in  mv  fancy.  1  expected  the 
same  feelings  to  come  again  with  the  same  occasion.  But  we 
differ  from  ourselves  less  at  sixty  and  sixteen,  than  the  latter 
does  from  six.  In  that  interval  what  had  I  not  lost  !  At  the 
first  period  I  knew  nothing,  understood  nothing,  discriminated 
nothing.     I  felt  all,  loved  all,  wondered  all — 

"Was  nourished  I  could  not  tell  how" — 

I  had  left  the  temple  a  devotee,  and  was  returned  a  rationalist. 
The  same  things  were  there  materially  ;  but  the  emblem,  the 
reference,  was  gone  !  The  green  curtain  was  no  longer  a 
veil  drawn  between  two  worlds,  the  unfolding  of  which  was 
to  bring  back  past  ages,  to  present  "  a  royal  ghost,"  but  a 
certain  quantity  of  green  baize,  which  was  to  separate  the 
audience  for  a  given  time  from  certain  of  their  fellow-men 
who  were  to  come  forward  and  pretend  those  parts.  The 
lights — the  orchestra  lights — came  up  a  clumsy  machinery. 
The  first  ring,  and  the  second  ring,  was  now  but  a  trick  of 
the  prompter's  bell — which  had  been,  like  the  note  of  the 
cuckoo,  a  phantom  of  a  voice,  no  hand  seen  or  guessed  at 
which  ministered  to  its  warning.  The  actors  were  men  and 
women  painted.  I  thought  the  fault  was  in  them  ;  but  it  was 
in  myself,  and  the  alteration  which  those  many  centuries — 
of  six  short  twelvemonths — had  wrought  in  me.  Perhaps  it 
was  fortunate  for  me  that  the  play  of  the  evening  was  but  an 
indifferent  comedy,  as  it  gave  me  time  to  crop  some  unrea- 
sonable expectations,  which  might  have  interfered  with  the 
genuine  emotions  with  which  I  was  soon  after  enabled  to 
enter  upon  the  first  appearance  to  me  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in  Isa- 
bella. Comparison  and  retrospection  soon  yielded  to  the  pres- 
ent attraction  of  the  scene  ;  and  the  theatre  became  to  me, 
upon  a  new  stock,  the  most  delightful  of  recreation. 


118  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


DREAM  CHILDREN. 

A    REVERY. 


Children  love  to  listen  to  stories  about  their  elders,  when 
they  were  children  ;  to  stretch  their  imaginations  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  traditionary  great  uncle  or  grandam  whom 
they  never  saw.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  my  little  ones  crept 
about  me  the  other  evening  to  hear  about  their  Great-grand- 
mother Field,  who  lived  in  a  great  house  in  Norfolk  (a  hun- 
dred times  bigger  than  that  in  which  they  and  papa  lived) 
which  had  been  the  scene — so  at  least  it  was  generally  be- 
lieved in  that  part  of  the  country — of  the  tragic  incidents 
which  they  had  lately  become  familiar  with  from  the  ballad 
of  the  Children  in  the  Wood.  Certain  it.  is  that  the  whole 
story  of  the  children  and  their  cruel  uncle  was  to  be  seen 
fairly  carved  out  in  wood  upon  the  chimneypiece  of  the 
great  hall,  the  whole  story  down  to  the  Robin  Redbreasts,  till 
a  foolish  rich  person  pulled  it  down  to  set  up  a  marble  one  of 
modern  invention  in  its  etead,  with  no  story  upon  it.  Here 
Alice  put  out  one  of  her  dear  mother's  looks,  too  tender  to  be 
called  upbraiding. 

Then  I  went  on  to  say  how  religious  and  how  good  their 
great-grandmother  Field  was,  how  beloved  and  respected  by 
everybody,  though  she  was  not  indeed  the  mistress  of  this  great 
house,  but  had  only  the  charge  of  it  (and  yet  in  some  respects 
she  might  be  said  to  be  the  mistress  of  it  too)  committed  to  her 
by  the  owner,  who  preferred  living  in  a  newer  and  more  fash- 
ionable mansion  which  he  had  purchased  somewhere  in  the 
adjoining  county  ;  but  still  she  lived  in  it  in  a  manner  as  if 
it  had  been  her  own,  and  kept  up  the  dignity  of  the  great 
house  in  a  sort  while  she  lived,  which  afterward  came  to  de- 
cay, and  was  nearly  pulled  down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments 
stripped  and  carried  away  to  the  owner's  other  house,  where 
they  were  set  up,  and  looked  as  awkward  as  if  some  one  were 
to  carry  away  the  old  tombs  they  had  seen  lately  at  the  Abbey, 
and  stick  them  up  in  Lady  C.'s  tawdry  guilt  drawing  room. 
Here  John  smiled,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  That  would  be  foolish 
indeed." 

And  then  I  told  how,  when  she  came  to  die,  her  funeral 
was  attended  by  a  concourse  of  all  the  poor,  and  some  of  the 
gentry  too,  of  the  neighbourhood  for  many  miles  round,  to 
bIiow  their  respect  for  her  memory,  because  she  had  been 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  1  19 

such  a  good  and  religious  woman  ;  so  good,  indeed,  that  she 
knew  all  the  Psalter  by  heart — ay,  and  a  great  part  of  the 
Testament  besides.     Here  little  Alice  spread  her  bands. 

Then  I  told  what  a  tall,  upright,  graceful  person  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  once  was  ;  and  how  in  her  youth  she  was 
esteemed  the  best  dancer — here  Alice's  little  right  foot  played 
an  involuntary  movement,  till,  upon  my  looking  grave,  it  de- 
sisted— the  best  dancer,  I  was  saying,  in  the  county,  till  a 
cruel  disease,  called  a  cancer,  came  and  bowed  her  down 
with  pain  ;  but  it  could  never  bend  her  good  spirits,  or  make 
them  stoop,  but  they  were  still  upright,  because  she  was  so 
good  and  religious. 

Then  I  told  how  she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  in  alone 
chamber  of  the  great  lone  house  ;  and  how  she  believed  that 
an  apparition  of  two  infants  was  to  be  seen  at  midnight  gli- 
ding up  and  down  the  great  staircase  near  where  she  slept) 
but  she  said  "  those  innocents  would  do  her  no  harm  ;"  and 
how  frightened  I  used  to  be,  though  in  those  days  I  had  my 
maid  to  sleep  with  me,  because  I  was  never  half  so  good  or 
religious  as  she — and  yet  I  never  saw  the  infants.  Here 
John  expanded  all  his  eyebrows  and  tried  to  look  courageous. 

Then  I  told  how  good  she  was  to  all  her  grandchildren, 
having  us  to  the  great  house  in  the  holydays,  where  I  in  par- 
ticular used  to  spend  many  hours  by  myself,  in  gazing  upon 
the  old  busts  of  the  Twelve  Csssars,  that  had  been  emperors 
of  Rome,  till  the  old  marble  heads  would  seem  to  live  again, 
or  I  to  be  turned  into  marble  with  them  ;  how  I  never  could 
be  tired  with  roaming  about  that  huge  mansion,  with  its  vast 
empty  rooms,  with  their  worn-out  hangings,  fluttering  tapestrv, 
and  carved  oaken  panels,  with  the  gilding  almost  rubbed  out 
— sometimes  in  the  spacious  oldfashioned  gardens,  which  I 
had  almost  to  myself,  unless  when  now  and  then  a  solitary 
gardening  man  would  cross  me — and  how  the  nectarines  and 
peaches  hung  upon  the  walls,  without  my  ever  offering  to 
pluck  them,  because  they  were  forbidden  fruit,  unless  now 
and  then — and  because  I  had  more  pleasure  in  strolling  about 
among  the  old  melancholy-looking  yew  trees,  or  the  firs,  and 
picking  up  the  red  berries  and  the  fir  apples,  which  were 
good  for  nothing  but  to  look  at — or  in  lying  about  upon  the 
fresh  grass,  with  all  the  fine  garden  smells  around  me — or 
basking  in  the  orangery,  till  I  could  almost  fancy  myself  ripen- 
ing too  along  with  the  oranges  and  the  limes  in  that  grateful 
warmth — or  in  watching  the  dace  that  darted  to  and  fro  in  the 
fish  pond,  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  with  here  and  there  a 
great  sulky  pike  hanging  midway  down  the  water  in  silent 
state,  as  if  it  mocked  at  their  impertinent  friskings — 1  had 


120  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA 

more  pleasure  in  these  busy  idle  diversions  than  in  all  the 
sweet  flavours  of  peaches,  nectarines,  oranges,  and  such  like 
common  baits  of  children.  Here  John  slyly  deposited  back 
upon  the  plate  a  bunch  of  grapes,  which,  not  unobserved  by 
Alice,  he  had  meditated  dividing  with  her,  and  both  seemed 
willing  to  relinquish  them  for  the  present  as  irrelevant. 

Then  in  somewhat  a  more  heightened  tone,  I  told  how, 
though  their  great-grandmother  Field  loved  all  her  grand- 
children, yet  in  an  especial  manner  she  might  be  said  to  love 

their  uncle,  John  L ,  because  he  was  so  handsome  and 

spirited  a  youth,  and  a  king  to  the  rest  of  us  ;  and,  instead  of 
moping  about  in  solitary  corners,  like  some  of  us,  he  would 
mount  the  most  mettlesome  horse  he  could  get,  when  but  an 
imp  no  bigger  than  themselves,  and  make  it  carry  him  half 
over  the  county  in  a  morning,  and  join  the  hunters  when 
there  were  any  out — and  yet  he  loved  the  old  great  house  and 
gardens  too,  but  had  too  much  spirit  to  be  always  pent  up 
within  their  boundaries — and  how  their  uncle  grew  up  to 
man's  estate,  as  brave  as  he  was  handsome,  to  the  admiration 
of  everybody,  but  of  their  great-grandmother  Field  most  espe- 
cially ;  and  how  he  used  to  carry  me  upon  his  back  when  I 
was  a  lame-footed  boy — for  he  was  a  good  bit  older  than  me 
—many  a  mile  when  I  could  not  walk  for  pain  ;  and  how 
in  after  life  he  became  lame  footed  too,  and  I  did  not  always 
(I  fear)  make  allowances  enough  for  him  when  he  was  im- 
patient and  in  pain,  nor  remember  sufficiently  how  con- 
siderate he  had  been  to  me  when  I  was  lame  footed  ;  and 
how  when  he  died,  though  he  had  not  been  dead  an  hour,  it 
seemed  as  if  he  had  died  a  great  while  ago,  such  a  distance 
there  is  between  life  and  death  ;  and  how  I  bore  his  death  as 
I  thought  pretty  well  at  first,  but  afterward  it  haunted  and 
haunted  me  ;  and  though  I  did  not  cry  o-r  take  it  to  heart  as 
some  do,  and  as  I  think  he  would  have  done  if  I  had  died,  yet 
I  missed  him  all  day  long,  and  knew  not  till  then  how  much 
I  had  loved  him.  I  missed  his  kindness,  and  I  missed  his 
crossness,  and  wished  him  to  be  alive  again,  to  be  quarrelling 
with  him,  (for  we  quarrelled  sometimes,)  rather  than  not  have 
him  again,  and  was  as  uneasy  without  him,  as  he  their  poor 
uncle  must  have  been  when  the  doctor  took  off  his  limb. 
Here  the  children  fell  a  crying,  and  asked  if  their  little  mourn- 
ing which  they  had  on  was  not  for  Uncle  John,  and  they  looked 
up,  and  prayed  me  not  to  go  on  about  their  uncle,  but  to  tell 
them  some  stories  about  their  pretty  dead  mother. 

Then  I  told  how  for  seven  long  years,  in  hope  sometimes, 
and  sometimes  in  despair,  yet  persisting  ever,  I  courted  the 
fair  Alice  W n ;  and,  as  much  as  children  could  under- 


ESSAYS    OF    EL1A.  121 

stand,  I  explained  to  them  what  coyness,  and  difficulty,  and 
denial  meant  in  maidens — when  suddenly  turning  to  Alice, 
the  soul  of  the  first  Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a 
reality  of  represrittment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which  of 
them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright  hair  was  ; 
and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the  children  gradually  grew 
fainter  to  my  view,  receding,  and  still  receding,  till  nothing  at 
last  but  two  mournful  features  were  seen  in  the  uttermost 
distance,  which,  without,  speech,  strangely  impressed  upon 
me  the  effects  of  speech  :  "  We  are  not  of  Alice,  nor  of  thee, 
nor  are  we  children  at  all.  The  children  of  Alice  call 
Bartrum  father.  We  are  nothing  ;  less  than  nothing ;  and 
dreams.  We  are  only  what  might  have  been,  and  must  wait 
upon  the  tedious  shores  of  Lethe  millions  of  ages  before  we 
have  existence,  and  a  name."  And  immediately  awaking,  I 
found  myself  quietly  seated  in  my  bachelor  armchair,  where 
I  had  fallen  asleep,  with  the  faithful  Bridget  unchanged  by 
my  side — but  John  L.  (or  James  Elia)  was  gone  for  ever 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS. 

IN  A  LETTER  TO  B.  F.  ESQ.,  AT  SVDNEY,  NEW  SOUTH  WALES. 

My  dear  F. — When  I  think  how  welcome  the  sight  of  a 
letter  from  the  world  where  you  were  born  must  be  to  you  in 
that  strange  one  to  which  you  have  been  transplanted,  I  feel 
some  compunctious  visitings  at  my  long  silence.  But,  indeed, 
it  is  no  easy  effort  to  set  about  a  correspondence  at  our  dis- 
tance. The  weary  world  of  waters  between  us  oppresses  the 
imagination.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  scrawl  of  mine 
should  ever  stretch  across  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  presumption  to 
expect  that  one's  thoughts  should  live  so  far.  It  is  like  wri- 
ting for  posterity  ;  and  reminds  me  of  one  of  Mrs.  Rowe's 
superscriptions,  "  Alcander  to  Strephon,  in  the  shades."  Cow- 
ley's Post  Angel  is  no  more  than  would  be  expedient  in  such 
an  intercourse.  One  drops  a  package  at  Lombard-street,  and 
in  twenty-four  hours  a  friend  in  Cumberland  gets  it  as  fresh 
as  if  it  came  in  ice.  It  is  only  like  whispering  through  a  long 
trumpet.  But  suppose  a  tube  let  down  from  the  moon,  with 
yourself  at  one  end  and  the  man  at  the  other ;  it  would  be 
some  balk  to  the  spirit  of  conversation,  if  you  knew  that  the 
dialogue  exchanged  with  that  interesting  theosophist  would 
11  F 


122  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

take  two  or  three  revolutions  of  a  higher  luminary  in  its  pas- 
sage. Yet  for  aught  I  know,  you  may  be  some  parasangs 
nigher  than  primitive  idea — Plato's  man — than  we  in  England 
here  have  the  honour  to  reckon  ourselves. 

Epistolary  matter  usually  compriseth  three  topics  ;  news, 
sentiment,  and  puns.  In  the  latter,  I  include  all  non-seriou3 
subjects ;  or  subjects  serious  in  themselves,  but  treated  after 
my  fashion,  non-seriously.  And  first,  for  news.  In  them  the 
most  desirable  circumstance,  I  suppose,  is  that  they  shall  be 
true.  But  what  security  can  I  have  that  what  I  now  send 
you  for  truth,  shall  not  before  you  get  it  unaccountably  turn 
into  a  lie  1  For  instance,  our  mutual  friend  P.  is  at  this  pres- 
ent writing — my  Now — in  good  health,  and  enjoys  a  fair  share 
of  worldly  reputation.  You  are  glad  to  hear  it.  This  is 
natural  and  friendly.  But  at  this  present  reading — your  Now 
—he  may  possibly  be  in  the  Bench,  or  going  to  be  hanged, 
which  in  reason  ought  to  abate  something  of  your  transport, 
(i.  e.  at  hearing  he  was  well,  &c.,)  or  at  least  considerably  to 
modify  it.  I  am  going  to  the  play  this  evening,  to  have  a 
laugh  with  Munden.  You  have  no  theatre,  I  think  you  told 
me,  in  your  land  of  d — d  realities.  You  naturally  lick  your 
lips,  and  envy  me  my  felicity.  Think  but  a  moment,  and  you 
will  correct  the  hateful  emotion.  Why,  it  is  Sunday  morn- 
ing with  you,  and  1823.  This  confusion  of  tenses,  this  grand 
solecism  of  two  presents,  is  in  a  degree  common  to  all  postage. 
But  if  I  sent  you  word  to  Bath,  or  the  Devises,  that  I  was 
expecting  the  aforesaid  treat  this  evening,  though  at  the  mo- 
ment you  received  the  intelligence  my  full  feast  of  fun  would 
he  over ;  yet  there  would  be  for  a  day  or  two  after,  as  you 
would  well  know,  a  smack,  a  relish  left  upon  my  mental 
palate,  which  would  give  rational  encouragement  for  you  to 
foster  a  portion  at  least  of  the  disagreeable  passion,  which  it 
was  in  part  my  intention  to  produce.  But  ten  months  hence 
your  envy  or  your  sympathy  would  be  as  useless  as  a  passion 
spent  upon  the  dead.  Not  only  does  truth,  in  these  long  in- 
tervals, unessence  herself,  but  (what  is  harder)  one  cannot 
venture  a  crude  fiction  for  the  fear  that  it  may  ripen  into  a 
truth  upon  the  voyage.  What  a  wild  improbable  banter  I  put 
upon  you  some  three  years  since — of  Will  Wetherall  having 
married  a  servant  maid  !  I  remember  gravely  consulting  you 
how  we  were  to  receive  her — for  Will's  wife  was  in  no  case 
to  be  rejected — and  your  no  less  serious  replication  in  the 
matter  ;  how  tenderly  you  advised  an  abstemious  introduction 
of  literary  topics  before  the  lady,  with  a  caution  not  to  be  too 
forward  in  bringing  upon  the  carpet  matters  more  within  the 
sphere  of  her  intelligence  ;  your  deliberate  judgment,  or  rather 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  123 

wise  suspension  of  sentence,  how  far  jacks,  and  spits,  and 
mops  could  with  propriety  be  introduced  as  subjects  ;  whether 
the  conscious  avoiding  of  all  such  matters  in  discourse  would 
not  have  a  worse  look  than  the  taking  of  them  casually  in  our 
way  ;  in  what  manner  we  should  carry  ourselves  to  our  maid 
Becky,  Mrs.  William  A  Vet  he  rail  being  by  ;  whether  we  should 
show  more  delicacy,  and  a  truer  sense  of  respect  for  Will's 
wife,  by  treating  Becky  with  our  customary  chiding  before 
her,  or  by  an  unusual  deferential  civility  paid  to  Becky  as  to  a 
person  of  great  worth,  but  thrown  by  the  caprice  of  fate  into  an 
humble  station.  There  were  difficulties,  1  remember,  on  both 
sides,  which  you  did  me  the  favour  to  state  with  the  precision 
of  a  lawyer,  united  to  the  tenderness  of  a  friend.  I  laughed 
in  my  sleeve  at  your  solemn  pleadings,  when  lo  !  while  I  was 
valuing  myself  upon  this  flam  put  upon  you  in  New  South 
Wales,  the  devil  in  England,  jealous  possibly  of  any  lie  chil- 
dren not  his  own,  or  working  after  my  copy,  has  actually  insti- 
gated our  friend  (not  three  days  since)  to  the  commission  of  a 
matrimony,  which  1  had  only  conjured  up  for  your  diversion. 
William  Wetherall  has  married  Mrs.  Cotterel's  maid.  But  to 
take  it  in  its  truest  sense,  you  will  see,  my  dear  F.,  that  news 
from  me  must  become  history  to  you ;  which  I  neither  pro- 
fess to  write,  nor  indeed  care  much  for  reading.  No  person, 
under  a  diviner,  can  with  any  prospect  of  veracity  conduct  a 
correspondence  at  such  an  arm's  length.  Two  prophets,  in- 
deed, might  thus  interchange  intelligence  with  effect ;  the 
epoch  of  the  writer  ( Habakkuk)  falling  in  with  the  true  present 
time  of  the  receiver  (Daniel) — but  then  we  are  no  prophets. 

Then  as  to  sentiment.  It  fares  little  better  with  that.  This 
Kind  of  dish,  above  all,  requires  to  be  served  up  hot ;  or  sent 
off  in  water  plates,  that  your  friend  may  have  it  almost  as 
warm  as  yourself.  If  it  have  time  to  cool,  it  is  the  most  taste- 
less of  all  cold  meats.  I  have  often  smiled  at  a  conceit  of 
the  late  Lord  C.  It  seems  that  travelling  somewhere  about 
Geneva,  he  came  to  some  pretty  green  spot,  or  nook,  where 
a  willow,  or  something,  hung  so  fantastically  and  invitingly 
over  a  stream — was  it  ? — or  a  rock  1 — no  matter — but  the  still- 
ness and  the  repose,  after  a  weary  journey,  'tis  likely,  in  a 
languid  moment  of  his  lordship's  hot  restless  life,  so  took  his 
fancy,  that  he  could  imagine  no  place  so  proper,  in  the  event 
of  his  death,  to  lay  his  bones  in.  This  was  all  very  natural 
and  excusable  as  a  sentiment,  and  shows  his  character  in  a 
very  pleasing  light.  But  when  from  a  passing  sentiment  it 
came  to  be  an  act ;  and  when,  by  a  positive  testamentary  dis- 
posal, his  remains  were  actually  carried  all  that  way  from 
England ;  who  was  there,  some  desperate  sentimentalists  ex- 

F2 


124  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

cepted,  that  did  not  ask  the  question,  Why  could  not  his  lord- 
ship have  found  a  spot  as  solitary,  a  nook  as  romantic,  a  tree 
as  green  and  pendant,  with  a  stream  as  emblematic  to  his 
purpose,  in  Surrey,  in  Dorset,  or  in  Devon  ?  Conceive  the 
sentiment  boarded  up,  freighted,  entered  at  the  custom  house, 
(startling  the  tidewaiters  with  the  novelty,)  hoisted  into  a 
ship.  Conceive  it  pawed  about  and  handled  between  the 
rude  jests  of  tarpawling  ruffians — a  thing  of  its  delicate  texture 
— the  salt  bilge  wetting  it  till  it  became  as  vapid  as  a  damaged 
lustring.  Suppose  it  in  material  danger  (mariners  have  some 
superstition  about  sentiments)  of  being  tossed  over  in  a  fresh 
gale  to  some  propitiatory  shark,  (spirit  of  St.  Gothard,  save 
us  from  a  quietus  so  foreign  to  the  deviser's  purpose  !)  but  it 
has  happily  evaded  a  fishy  consummation.  Trace  it  then  to 
its  lucky  landing — at  Lyons  shall  we  say  ? — I  have  not  the 
map  before  me — jostled  upon  four  men's  shoulders — baiting 
at  this  town — stopping  to  refresh  at  t'other  village — waiting 
a  passport  here  ;  a  license  there  ;  the  sanction  of  the  magis- 
tracy in  this  district  ;  the  concurrence  of  the  ecclesiastics  in 
that  canton  ;  till  at  length  it  arrives  at  its  destination,  tired  out 
and  jaded,  from  a  brisk  sentiment,  into  a  feature  of  silly  pride 
or  tawdry  senseless  affectation.  How  few  sentiments,  my 
dear  F.,  I  am  afraid  we  can  set  down,  in  the  sailor's  phrase, 
as  quite  seaworthy. 

Lastly,  as  to  the  agreeable  levities,  which,  though  con- 
temptible in  bulk,  are  the  twinkling  corpuscula  which  should 
irradiate  a  right  friendly  epistle — your  puns  and  small  jests 
are,  I  apprehend,  extremely  circumscribed  in  their  sphere  of 
action.  They  are  so  far  from  a  capacity  of  being  packed  up 
and  sent  beyond  sea,  they  will  scarce  endure  to  be  trans- 
ported by  hand  from  this  room  to  the  next.  Their  vigour  is 
as  the  instant  of  their  birth.  Their  nutriment  for  their  brief 
existence  is  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  bystanders  : 
or  this  last,  is  the  fine  slime  of  Nilus — the  melior  lutus — 
whose  maternal  recipiency  is  as  necessary  as  the  sol  pater  to 
their  equivocal  generation.  A  pun  hath  a  hearty  kind  of  pres- 
ent ear-kissing  smack  with  it ;  you  can  no  more  transmit  it 
in  its  pristine  flavour,  than  you  can  send  a  kiss.  Have  you 
not  tried  in  some  instances  to  palm  off  a  yesterday's  pun  upon 
a  gentleman,  and  has  it  answered  ?  Not  but  it  was  new  to 
his  hearing,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  come  new  from  you.  It 
did  not  hitch  in.  It  was  like  picking  up  at  a  village  alehouse 
a  two  days'  old  newspaper.  You  have  not  seenjt  before,  but 
you  resent  the  stale  thing  as  an  affront. 

This  sort  of  merchandise  above  all  requires  a  quick  return 
A  pun,  and  its  recognitory  laugh,  must,  be  coinstantaneous.  The 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A  125 

one  is  the  brisk  lightning,  tlie  other  the  fierce  thunder..  A 
moment's  interval,  and  the  link  is  snapped.  A  pun  is  reflected 
(iota  a  friend's  face  as  from  a  minor.  Who  would  consult  his 
sweet  visnomy,  if  the  polished  surface  were  two  or  three 
minutes  (not  to  speak  of  twelve  months,  my  dear  F.)  in  giving 
back  its  copy  ? 

I  cannot  image  to  myself  whereabout  you  are.  When  I 
try  to  fix  it,  Peter  Wilkius's  island  comes  across  me.  Some- 
times you  seem  to  be  in  the  Hades  of  Thieves.  I  see  Diog- 
enes prying  among  you  with  his  perpetual  fruitless  lantern. 
What  must  you  be  willing  by  this  time  to  give  for  the  sight 
of  an  honest  man  !  You  must  almost  have  forgotten  how  we 
look.  And  tell  me,  what  your  Svdneyites  do  ?  are  they 
th**v*ng  all  day  long?  Merciful  Heaven!  what  property 
can  stand  against  such  a  depredation  !  The  kangaroos — 
your  aborigines — do  they  keep  their  primitive  simplicity  un- 
Europe  tainted,  with  those  little  short  fore  puds,  looking  like 
a  lesson  framed  by  nature  to  the  pickpocket !  Marry,  for 
diving  into  fobs  they  are  rather  lamely  provided  a  priori ;  but 
if  the  hue  and  cry  were  once  up,  they  would  show  as  fair  a  pair 
of  hind  shifters  as  the  expertest  locomoter  in  the  colony.  We 
hear  the  most  improbable  tales  at  this  distance.  Pray,  is  -it 
true  that  the  young  Spartans  among  you  are  born  with  six 
fingers,  which  spoils  their  scanning !  It  must  look  very  odd  ; 
but  use  reconciles.  For  their  scansion,  it  is  less  to  be  re- 
gretted, for  if  they  take  it  into  their  heads  to  be  poets,  it  is 
odds  but  they  turn  out,  the  greater  part  of  them,  vile  plagia- 
rists. Is  there  much  difference  to  see,  too,  between  the  son 
of  a  th**f,  and  the  grandson  ?  or  where  does  the  taint  stop  ? 
Do  you  bleach  in  three  or  in  four  generations  ?  I  have  many 
questions  to  put,  but  ten  Delphic  voyages  can  be  made  in 
shorter  time  than  it  will  take  to  satisfy  my  scruples.  Do  you 
grow  your  own  hemp  ?  What  is  your  staple  trade,  exclusive 
of  the  national  profession,  I  mean?  Your  locksmiths,  I  take 
it,  are  some  of  your  great  capitalists. 

I  am  insensibly  chatting  to  you  as  familiarly  as  when  we 
used  to  exchange  good-morrows  out  of  our  old  contiguous 
windows,  in  pump-famed  Harecourt  in  the  temple.  Why  did 
you  ever  leave  that  quiet  corner  ?  Why  did  1  ? — with  its 
complement  of  four  poor  elms,  from  whose  smoke-died  barks, 
the  theme  ,of  jesting  ruralists,  I  picked  my  first  ladybirds  ! 
My  heart  is  as  dry  as  that  spring  sometimes  proves  in  a 
thirsty  August,  when  I  revert  to  the  space  that  is  between  us  ; 
a  length  of  passage  enough  to  render  obsolete  the  phrases  of 
our  English  letters  before  they  can  reach  you.  But  while  I 
11* 


126  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

talk,  I  think  you  hear  me — thoughts  dallying  with  vain  sur- 
mise— 

"  Ay  me  !  while  thee  the  seas  and  sounding  shores 
Hold  far  away." 

Come  back,  before  I  am  grown  into  a  very  old  man,  so  as 
<ou  shall  hardly  know  me.  Come,  before  Bridget  walks  on 
crutches.  Girls  whom  you  left  children  have  become  sage 
matrons,  while  you  are  tarrying  there.  The  blooming  Miss 
tf r  (you  remember  Sally  VV r)  called  upon  us  yes- 
terday, an  aged  crone.  Folks,  whom  you  knew,  die  off  every 
year.  Formerly,  I  thought  that  death  was  wearing  out — I 
stood  ramparted  about  with  so  many  healthy  friends.  The 
departure  or  J.  W.,  two  springs  back,  corrected  my  delusion. 
Since  then  the  old  divorcer  has  been  busy.  If  you  do  not 
make  haste  to  return,  there  will  be  little  left  to  greet  you,  of 
me,  or  mine. 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY  SWEEPERS. 

I  like  to  meet  a  sweep — understand  me — not  a  grown 
sweeper — old  chimney  sweepers  are  by  no  means  attractive 
■ — but  one  of  those  tender  novices,  blooming  through  their 
first  nigritude,  the  maternal  washings  not  quite  effaced  from 
the  cheek — such  as  come  forth  with  the  dawn,  or  somewhat 
earlier,  with  their  little  professional  notes  sounding  like  the 
peep  peep  of  a  young  sparrow  ;  or  iiker  to  the  matin  lark  should 
I  pronounce  them,  in  their  aerial  ascents  not  seldom  anticipa- 
ting the  sunrise  1 

I  have  a  kindly  yearning  towards  these  dim  specks — poor 
blots  — innocent  blacknesses  — 

I  reverence  these  young  Africans  of  our  own  growth — these 
almost  clergy  imps,  who  sport  their  cloth  without  assumption  ; 
and  from  their  little  pulpits,  (the  tops  of  chimneys,)  in  the 
nipping  air  of  a  December  morning,  preach  a  lesson  of  pa- 
tience to  mankind. 

When  a  child,  what  a  mysterious  pleasure  it  was  to  wit- 
ness their  operation  !  to  see  a  chit  no  bigger  than  one's  self 
enter,  one  knew  not  by  what  process,  into  what  seemed  the 
fauces  Averni — to  pursue  him  in  imagination,  as  he  went 
sounding  on  through  so  many  dark  stilling  caverns,  horrid 
shades  !   to  shudder  with  the  idea  that  "  now,  surely  he  must 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  127 

be  lost  fur  ever  !" — to  revive  at  hearing  his  feeble  shout  of  dis- 
covered daylight — and  then  (oh  fulness  of  delight)  running 
out  of  doors,  to  come  just  in  time  to  see  the  sable  phenome- 
non emerge  in  safety,  the  brandished  weapon  of  his  art  vic- 
torious like  some  flag  waved  over  a  conquered  citadel !  I 
seem  to  remember  having  been  told,  that  a  bad  sweep  was 
once  left  in  a  stack,  with  his  brush,  to  indicate  which  way  the 
wind  blew.  It  was  an  awful  spectacle  certainly  !  not  much 
unlike  the  old  stage  direction  in  Macbeth,  where  the  "  Ap- 
parition of  a  child  crowned  with  a  tree  in  his  hand  rises." 

Reader,  if  thou  meetest  one  of  these  small  gentry  in  thy 
early  rambles,  it  is  good  to  give  him  a  penny.  It  is  better  to 
give  him  twopence.  If  it  be  starving  weather,  and  to  the 
proper  troubles  of  his  hard  occupation,  a  pair  of  kibed  heels 
(no  unusual  accompaniment)  be  superadded,  the  demand  on 
thy  humanity  will  surely  rise  to  a  tester. 

There  is  a  composition,  the  groundwork  of  which  I  have 
understood  to  be  the  sweet  wood  yclept  sassafras.  This 
wood,  boiled  down  to  a  kind  of  tea,  and  tempered  with  an  in- 
fusion of  milk  and  sugar,  hath  to  some  tastes  a  delicacy  be- 
yond the  China  luxury.  I  know  not  how  thy  palcte  may  rel 
ish  it ;  for  myself,  with  every  deference  to  the  judicious  Mr. 
Read,  who  hath  time  out  of  mind  kept  open  a  shop  (the  only 
one,  he  avers,  in  London)  for  the  vending  of  this  "  wholesome 
and  pleasant  beverage,"  on  the  south  side  of  Fleet-street,  as 
thou  approachest  Bridge-street — the  only  Salopian  house — I 
have  never  yet  adventured  to  dip  my  own  particular  lip  in  a 
basin  of  his  commended  ingredients — a  cautious  premonition  to 
the  olfactories  constantly  whispering  to  me  that  my  stomach 
must  infallibly,  with  all  due  courtesy,  decline  it.  Yet  I  have 
seen  palates,  otherwise  not  uninstructed  in  dietetical  elegan- 
ces, sup  it  up  with  avidity. 

I  know  not  by  what  particular  conformation  of  the  organ  it 
happens,  but  I  have  always  found  that  this  composition  is 
surprisingly  gratifying  to  the  palate  of  a  young  chimney 
sweeper — whether  the  oily  particles  (sassafras  is  slightly 
oleaginous)  do  attenuate  and  soften  the  fuliginous  concretions, 
which  are  sometimes  found  (in  dissections)  to  adhere  to  the 
roof  of  the  mouth  in  these  unfledged  practitioners  ;  or  whether 
Nature,  sensible  that  she  had  mingled  too  much  of  bitter  wood 
in  the  lot  of  these  raw  victims,  caused  to  grow  out  of  the 
earth  her  sassafras  for  a  sweet  lenitive — but  so  it  is,  that  no 
possible  taste  or  odour  to  the  senses  of  a  young  chimney 
sweeper  can  convey  a  delicate  excitement  comparable  to  this 
mixture.  Being  penniless,  they  will  yet  hang  their  black 
heads  over  the  ascending  steam,  to  gratify  one  sense  if  pos- 


128  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

Bible,  seemingly  no  less  pleased  than  those  domestic  animals 
—  cats — when  they  purr  over  a  new-found  sprig  of  valerian. 
There  is  something  more  in  these  sympathies  than  philosophy 
can  inculcate. 

Now  albeit  Mr.  Read  boasteth,  not  without  reason,  that  his 
is  the  only  Salopian  house,  yet  be  it  known  to  thee,  reader— if 
thou  art  one  who  keepest  what  are  called  good  hours,  thou  art 
haply  ignorant  of  the  fact— he  hath  a  race  of  industrious  im- 
itators, who  from  stalls,  and  under  open  sky,  dispense  the 
same  savoury  mess  to  humbler  customers,  at  that  dead  time 
of  the  dawn,  when  (as  extremes  meet)  the  rake,  reeling  home 
from  his  midnight  cups,  and  the  hard-handed  artisan,  leaving 
his  bed  to  resume  the  premature  labours  of  the  day,  jostle, 
not  unfrequently  to  the  manifest  disconcerting  of  the  former, 
for  the  honours  of  the  pavement.  It  is  the  time  when,  in 
summer,  between  the  expired  and  the  not  yet  relumined 
kitchen  fires,  the  kennels  of  our  fair  metropolis  give  forth 
their  least  satisfactory  odours.  The  rake,  who  wisheth  to  dis- 
sipate his  over-night  vapours  in  more  grateful  coffee,  curses 
the  ungenial  fume  as  he  passeth  ;  but  the  astisan  stops  to 
taste,  and  blesses  the  fragrant  breakfast. 

This  is  Saloop — the  precocious  herb  woman's  darling — the 
delight  of  the  early  gardener,  who  transports  his  smoking 
cabbages  by  break  of  day  from  Hammersmith  to  Covent  Gar- 
den's famed  piazzas — the  delight,  and,  oh  I  fear,  too  often  the 
envy  of  the  unpennied  sweep.  Him  shouldst  thou  haply 
encounter,  with  his  dim  visage  pendent  over  the  grateful 
steam,  regale  him  with  a  sumptuous  basin  (it  will  cost  thee 
but  three  halfpennies)  and  a  slice  of  delicate  bread  and  but- 
ter (an  added  halfpenny) — so  may  thy  culinary  fires,  eased 
of  the  overcharged  secretions  from  thy  worse-placed  hospital- 
ities, curl  up  a  lighter  volume  to  the  welkin — so  may  the  de- 
scending soot  never  taint  thy  costly  well-ingredienced  soups 
— nor  the  odious  cry,  quick  reaching  from  street  to  street,  **.. 
the  fired  chimney,  invite  the  rattling  engines  from  ten  adjacen' 
parishes,  to  disturb  for  a  casual  scintillation  thy  peace  and 
pocket ! 

I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of  street  affronts  ;  the 
jeers  and  taunts  of  the  populace  ;  the  low-bred  triumph  they 
display  over  the  casual  trip,  or  splashed  stocking  of  a  gentle- 
man. Yet  can  I  endure  the  jocularity  of  a  young  sweep 
with  something  more  than  forgiveness.  In  the  last  wintei 
but  one,  pacing  along  Cheapside  with  my  accustomed  pre- 
cipitation when  I  walk  westward,  a  treacherous  slide  brought 
me  upon  my  back  in  an  instant.  I  scrambled  up  with  pain 
and  shame  enough — yet  outwardly  trying  to  face  it  down,  as 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  129 

if  nothing  hail  happened — when  the  roguish  grin  of  one  of 
these  young  wits  encountered  me.  There  he  stood,  pointing 
me  out  with  his  dusky  linger  to  the  mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman 
(I  suppose  his  mother)  in  particular,  till  the  tears  for  the  ex- 
quisiteness  of  the  fun  (so  he  thought  it)  worked  themselves 
out  at  the  corners  of  his  poor  red  eyes,  red  from  many  a  pre- 
vious weeping,  and  soot-inflamed,  yet  twinkling  through  all 
with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of  desolation,  that  Hogarth — 
hut  Hogarth  has  got  him  already  (how  could  he  miss  him  '.) 
in  the  March  to  Finchley,  grinning  at  the  pieman — there  he 
stood,  as  he  stands  in  the  picture,  irremoveable,  as  if  the  jest 
was  to  last  for  ever — with  such  a  maximum  of  glee,  and  min- 
imum of  mischief,  in  his  mirth — for  the  grin  of  a  genuine 
sweep  hath  absolutely  no  malice  in  it — that  I  could  have  been 
content,  if  the  honour  of  a  gentleman  might  endure  it,  to  have 
remained  his  butt  and  his  mockery  till  midnight. 

I  am  by  theory  obdurate  to  the  seductiveness  of  what  are 
called  a  fine  set  of  teeth.  Every  pair  of  rosy  lips  (the  ladies 
must  pardon  me)  is  a  casket,  presumably  holding  such  jewels  ; 
but,  methinks,  they  should  take  leave  to  "  air"  them  as  fru- 
gally as  possible.  The  fine  lady,  or  fine  gentleman,  who 
show  me  their  teeth,  show  me  bones.  Yet  must  I  confess, 
that  from  the  mouth  of  a  true  sweep  a  display  (even  to  osten- 
tation) of  those  white  and  shining  ossifications,  strikes  me  as 
an  agreeable  anomaly  in  manners,  and  an  allowable  piece  of 
foppery.     It  is  as  when 

"  A  sable  cloud 
Turns  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night." 

It  is  like  some  remnant  of  gentry  not  quite  extinct ;  a  badge 
of  better  days  ;  a  hint  of  nobility :  and  doubtless,  under  the 
obscuring  darkness  and  double  night  of  their  forlorn  disguise- 
ment,  oftentimes  lurketh  good  blood  and  gentle  conditions, 
derived  from  lost  ancestry  and  a  lapsed  pedigree.  The 
premature  apprenticements  of  these  tender  victims  give  but 
too  much  encouragement,  I  fear,  to  clandestine,  and  almost 
infantile  abductions  ;  the  seeds  of  civility  and  true  courtesy, 
so  often  discernible  in  these  young  grafts,  (not  otherwise  to  be 
accounted  for,)  plainly  hint  at  some  forced  adoptions  ;  many 
noble  Rachels  mourning  for  their  children,  even  in  our  davs, 
countenance  the  fact ;  the  tales  of  fairy  spiriting  may  shadow 
a  lamentable  verity,  and  the  recovery  of  the  young  Montagu 
be  but  a  solitary  instance  of  good  fortune,  out  of  many  irre- 
parable and  hopeless  dejiliations. 

In  one  of  the  state  beds  at  Arundel  Castle,  a  Tew  years 
since — under  a  ducal  canopy — (that  seat  of  the  Howards  is 

F  3 


130  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

an  object  of  curiosity  to  visiters,  chiefly  for  its  beds,  in  which 
the  late  duke  was  especially  a  connoisseur) — encircled  with 
curtains  of  delicatest  crimson,  with  starry  coronets  inwoven 
— folded  between  a  pair  of  sheets  whiter  and  softer  than 
the  lap  where  Venus  lulled  Ascanius — was  discovered  by 
chance,  after  all  methods  of  search  had  failed,  at  noonday, 
fast  asleep,  a  lost  chimney  sweeper.  The  little  creature, 
having  somehow  confounded  his  passage  among  the  intrica- 
cies of  those  lordly  chimneys,  by  some  unknown  aperture  had 
alighted  upon  this  magnificent  chamber  ;  and  tired  with  his 
tedious  explorations,  was  unable  to  resist  the  delicious  invite- 
ment  to  repose  which  he  there  saw  exhibited  ;  so,  creeping 
between  the  sheets  very  quietly,  he  laid  his  black  head  upon 
the  pillow,  and  slept  like  a  young  Howard. 

Such  is  the  account  given  to  the  visiters  at  the  castle. 
But  I  cannot  help  seeming  to  perceive  a  confirmation  of  what 
I  have  just  hinted  at  in  this  story.  A  high  instinct  was  at 
work  in  the  case,  or  I  am  mistaken.  Is  it  probable  that  a  poor 
child  of  that  description,  with  whatever  weariness  he  might 
be  visited,  would  have  ventured,  under  such  a  penalty  as  he 
would  be  taught  to  expect,  to  uncover  the  sheets  of  a  duke's 
bed,  and  deliberately  to  lay  himself  down  between  them, 
when  the  rug,  or  the  carpet,  presented  an  obvious  couch,  still 
far  above  his  pretensions — is  this  probable,  I  would  ask,  if 
the  great  power  of  nature,  which  I  contend  for,  had  not  been 
manifested  within  him,  prompting  to  the  adventure  1  Doubt- 
less this  young  nobleman  (for  such  my  mind  misgives  me  that 
he  must  be)  was  allured  by  some  memory,  not  amounting  to 
full  consciousness  of  his  condition  in  infancy,  when  he  was 
used  tobe  lapped  by  his  mother,  or  his  nurse,  in  just  such  sheets 
as  he  there  found,  into  which  he  was  now  but  creeping  back 
as  into  his  proper  incunabula  and  resting-place.  By  no  other 
theory,  than  by  this  sentiment  of  a  pre-existent  state,  (as  I 
may  call  it,)  can  I  explain  a  deed  so  venturous,  and,  indeed, 
upon  any  other  system,  so  indecorous,  in  this  tender  but  un- 
seasonable sleeper. 

My  pleasant  friend  Jem  White  was  so  impressed  with  the 
belief  of  metamorphoses  like  this  frequently  taking  place, 
that  in  some  sort  to  reverse  the  wrongs  of  fortune  in  these 
poor  changelings,  he  instituted  an  annual  feast  of  chimney 
sweepers,  at  which  it  was  his  pleasure  to  officiate  as  host  and 
waiter.  It  was  a  solemn  supper  held  in  Smithfield,  upon  the 
yearly  return  of  the  fair  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Cards  were 
issued  a  week  before  to  the  master  sweeps  in  and  about  the 
metropolis,  confining  the  invitation  to  their  younger  fry.  Now 
and  then  an  elderly  stripling  would  got  in  among  us,  and  be 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  131 

good-naturedly  winked  at  ;  but  our  main  body  were  infantry. 
One  unfortunate  wight,  indeed,  who,  relying  upon  his  dusky 
6uit,  had  intruded  himself  into  our  party,  but  by  tokens  was 
providentially  discovered,  in  time,  to  be  no  chimney  sweeper, 
(all  is  not  soot  which  looks  so,)  was  quoited  out  of  the  pres- 
ence with  universal  indignation,  as  not  having  on  the  wedding 
garment  ;  but  in  general  the  greatest  harmony  prevailed. 
The  place  chosen  was  a  convenient  spot  among  the  pens,  at 
the  north  side  of  the  fair,  not  so  far  distant  as  to  be  imper- 
vious f  the  agreeable  hubbub  of  that  vanity  ;  but  remote 
enough  not  to  be  obvious  to  the  interruption  of  every  gaping 
spectator  in  it.  The  guests  assembled  about  seven.  In  those 
little  temporary  parlours  three  tables  were  spread  with  napery, 
not  so  fine  as  substantial,  and  at  every  board  a  comely  hostess 
presided  with  her  pan  of  hissing  sausages.  The  nostrils  of 
the  young  rogues  dilated  at  the  savour.  James  White,  as 
head  waiter,  had  charge  of  the  first  table  ;  and  myself,  with 
our  trusty  companion  Bigod,  ordinarily  ministered  to  the  other 
two.  There  was  clambering  and  jostling,  you  may  be  sure, 
who  should  get  at  the  first  table — for  Rochester  in  his  mad- 
dest days  could  not  have  done  the  humours  of  the  scene  with 
more  spirit  than  my  friend.  After  some  general  expression  ui 
thanks  for  the  honour  the  company  had  done  him,  his  inaug- 
ural ceremony  was  to  clasp  the  greasy  waist  of  old  Dame  Ur- 
sula, (the  fattest  of  the  three,)  that  stood  frying  and  fretting, 
half  blessing,  half  cursing  "  the  gentleman,"  and  imprint  upon 
her  chaste  lips  a  tender  salute,  whereat  the  universal  host 
woidd  set  up  a  shout  that  tore  the  conclave,  while  hundreds 
of  grinning  teeth  startled  the  night  with  their  brightness.  Oh 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  sable  younkers  lick  in  the  unctu- 
ous meat,  with  his  more  unctuous  sayings — how  he  would  lit 
the  titbits  to  the  puny  mouths,  reserving  the  lengthier  links 
for  the  seniors — how  he  would  intercept  a  morsel  even  in  the 
jaws  of  some  young  desperado,  declaring  it  "  must  to  the  pan 
again  to  be  browned,  for  it  was  not  fit  for  a  gentleman's  eat- 
ing"— how  he  would  recommend  this  slice  of  white  bread,  or 
that  piece  of  kissing  crust,  to  a  tender  juvenile,  advising  them 
all  to  have  a  care  of  cracking  their  teeth,  which  were  their 
best  patrimony — how  genteelly  he  would  deal  about  the  small 
ale,  as  if  it  were  wine,  naming  the  brewer,  and  protesting,  if 
it  were  not  good,  he  should  lose  their  custom  ;  with  a  special 
recommendation  to  wipe  the  lip  before  drinking.  Then  we 
had  our  toasts — "  The  King" — The  Cloth" — which,  whether 
they  understood  or  not,  was  equally  diverting  and  Battering  ; 
ana  for  a  crowning  sentiment,  which  never  tailed,  a  May  the 
Brush  supersede  the  Laurel."     All  these,  and  fifty  other  fan- 


132  ESSAVS    OK    ELIA. 

cies,  which  were  rather  felt  than  comprehended  by  his  guests, 
would  he  utter,  standing  upon  tables,  and  prefacing  every  sen- 
timent with  a  "  Gentlemen,  give  me  leave  to  propose  so  and 
so,"  which  was  a  prodigious  comfort  to  those  young  orphans  ; 
every  now  and  then  stuffing  into  his  mouth  (for  it  did  not  do 
to  be  squeamish  on  these  occasions)  indiscriminate  pieces  ol 
those  reeking  sausages,  which  pleased  them  mightily,  and  was 
the  savouriest  part,  you  may  believe,  of  the  entertainment. 

"  Golden  lads  and  lasses  must, 
As  chimney  sweepers,  come  to  dust." 

James  White  is  extinct,  and  with  him  these  suppers  have 
long  ceased.  He  carried  away  with  him  half  the  fun  of  the 
world  when  he  died — of  my  world  at  least.  His  old  clients 
look  for  him  among  the  pens  ;  and,  missing  him,  reproach  the 
altered  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the  glory  of  Smithrield 
departed  for  ever. 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS  U 
THE  METROPOLIS. 

The  all-sweeping  besom  of  societarian  reformation — your 
only  modern  Alcides'  club  to  rid  the  time  of  its  abuses — is 
uplift  with  many-handed  sway  to  extirpate  the  last  fluttering 
tatters  of  the  bugbear  Mendicity  from  the  metropolis.  Scrips, 
wallets,  bags — staves,  dogs,  and  crutches — the  whole  mendi- 
cant fraternity  with  all  their  baggage  are  fast  posting  out  of 
the  purlieus  of  this  eleventh  persecution.  From  the  crowded 
crossing,  from  the  corners  of  streets  and  turning  of  alleys, 
the  parting  Genius  of  Beggary  is  "  with  sighing  sent." 

1  do  not  approve  of  this  wholesale  going  to  work,  this  im- 
pertinent crusado,  or  helium  ad  exterminalionem,  proclaimed 
against  a  species.  Much  good  might  be  sucked  from  these 
beggars. 

They  were  the  oldest  and  the  honourablest  form  of  pauper- 
ism. Their  appeals  were  to  our  common  nature  ;  less  re- 
volting to  an  ingenuous  mind  than  to  be  a  suppliant  to  the 
particular  humours  or  caprice  of  any  fellow-creature,  or  set 
of  fellow-creatures,  parochial  or  societarian.  Theirs  were 
the  only  rates  uninvidious  in  the  levy,  ungrudged  in  the  as- 
sessment. 

There  was  a  dignity  springing  from  the  very  depth  of  their 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  133 

desolation  ;  as  to  be  naked  is  to  be  so  much  nearer  to  the  be- 
ing a  man  than  to  go  in  livei  v. 

The  greatest  spirits  have  i'elt  this  in  their  reverses  ;  and 
when  Dionysius  from  king  turned  schoolmaster,  do  we  ftel 
anything  towards  him  but  contempt  I  Could  Vandyke  have 
made  a  picture  of  him,  swaying  a  ferula  for  a  sceptre,  width 
would  have  affected  our  minds  with  the  same  heroic  pity,  the 
same  compassionate  admiration,  with  which  we  regard  Ids 
Brlisarius  begging  for  an  uboluml  Would  the  moral  have. 
beep  more  graceful,  more  pathetic  1 

The  blind  beggar  in  the  legend — the  father  of  pretty  Bessy 
— whose  story  doggerel  rhymes  and  alehouse  signs  cannot  so 
degrade  or  attenuate,  but  that  some  sparks  of  a  lustrous  spirit 
will  shine  through  the  disguisements — this  noble  Earl  of  Corn- 
wall, (as  indeed  he  was,)  and  memorable  sport  of  fortune,  flee- 
in  »■  from  the  unjust  sentence  of  his  liege  lord,  stripped  of  all, 
and  seated  on  the  flowering  green  of  Bethnal,  with  his  more 
fresh  and  springing  daughter  by  his  side,  illumining  his  rags 
and  his  beggary — would  the  child  and  parent  have  cut  a  better 
figure  doing  the  honours  of  a  counter,  or  expiating  their  fallen 
condition  upon  the  three-foot  eminence  of  some  sempstering 
shop-board  I 

In  tale  or  history  your  beggar  is  ever  the  just  antipode  to 
your  king.  The  poets  and  romancical  writers,  (as  dear  Mar- 
garet Newcastle  would  call  them,)  when  they  would  most 
sharply  and  feelingly  paint  a  reverse  of  fortune,  never  stop 
till  they  have  brought  down  their  hero  in  good  earnest  to  rags 
and  the  wallet.  The  depth  of  the  descent  illustrates  the 
height  he  falls  from.  There  is  no  medium  which  can  be  pre- 
sented to  the  imagination  without  offence.  There  is  no 
breaking  the  fall.  Lear,  thrown  from  his  palace,  must  divest 
him  of  his  garments,  till  he  answer  "  mere  nature  ;"  and 
Cresseid,  fallen  from  a  prince's  love,  must  extend  her  pale 
arms,  pale  with  Other  whiteness  than  of  beauty,  supplicating 
lazar  alms  with  bell  and  clapdish. 

The  Lucian  wits  knew  this  very  well  ;  and,  with  a  con- 
verse policy,  when  they  would  express  scorn  of  greatness 
without  the  pity,  they  show  us  an  Alexander  in  the  shades 
cobbling  shoes,  or  a  SSemiramis  getting  up  foul  linen. 

How  would  it  sound  in  song,  that  a  great  monarch  had 
declined  his  affections  upon  the  daughter*  of  a  baker !  yet  do 
we  feel  the  imagination  at  all  violated  when  we  read  the 
'•  true  ballad,"  where  King  Cophetua  woos  the  beggar  maid  ? 

Pauperism,  pauper,  poor  man,  are  expressions  of  pity,  but 
pity  alloyed  with  contempt.  No  one  properly  contemns  a 
beggar.  Bovertv  is  a  comparative  thing,  and  each  degree  of 
12 


134  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

it  is  mocked  by  its  "  neighbour  grice."  Its  poor-rents  and 
comings-in  are  soon  summed  up  and  told.  Its  pretences  to 
property  are  almost  ludicrous.  Its  pitiful  attempts  to  save 
excite  a  smile.  Every  scornful  companion  can  weigh  his 
trifle  bigger  purse  against  it.  Poor  man  reproaches  poor  man 
in  the  streets  with  impolitic  mention  of  his  condition,  his  own 
being  a  shade  better,  while  the  rich  pass  by  and  jeer  at  both. 
No  rascally  comparative  insults  a  beggar,  or  thinks  of  weigh- 
ing purses  with  him.  He  is  not  in  the  scale  of  comparison. 
He  is  not  under  the  measure  of  property.  He  confessedly 
hath  none,  any  more  than  a  dog  or  a  sheep.  No  one  twitteth 
him  with  ostentation  above  his  means.  No  one  accuses  him 
of  pride,  or  upbraideth  him  with  mock  humility.  None  justle 
with  him  for  the  wall,  or  pick  quarrels  for  precedency.  No 
wealthy  neighbour  seeketh  to  eject  him  from  his  tenement. 
No  man  sues  him.  No  man  goes  to  law  with  him.  If  I  were 
not  the  independent  gentleman  that  I  am,  rather  than  I  would 
be  a  retainer  to  the  great,  a  led  captain,  or  a  poor  relation,  I 
would  choose,  out  of  the  delicacy  and  true  greatness  of  my 
mind,  to  be  a  beggar. 

Rags,  which  are  the  reproach  of  poverty,  are  the  beggar's 
robes,  and  graceful  insignia  of  his  profession,  his  tenure,  his 
full  dress,  the  suit  in  which  he  is  expected  to  show  himself 
in  public.  He  is  never  out  of  the  fashion,  or  limpeth  awk- 
wardly behind  it.  He  is  not  required  to  put  on  court  mourn- 
ing. He  weareth  all  colours,  fearing  none.  His  costume 
hath  undergone  less  change  than  the  Quaker's.  He  is  the 
only  man  in  the  universe  who  is  not  obliged  to  study  appear- 
ances. The  ups  and  downs  of  the  world  concern  him  no 
longer.  He  alone  continueth  in  one  stay.  The  price  of  stock 
or  land  affecteth  him  not.  The  fluctuations  of  agricultural  or 
commercial  prosperity  touch  him  not,  or  at  worst  but  change 
his  customers.  He  is  not  expected  to  become  bail  or  surety 
for  any  one.  No  man  troubleth  him  with  questioning  his  re- 
ligion or  politics.     He  is  the  only  free  man  in  the  universe. 

The  mendicants  of  this  great  city  were  so  many  of  her 
sights,  her  lions.  1  can  no  more  spare  them  than  I  could  the 
cries  of  London.  No  corner  of  a  street  is  complete  without 
them.  They  are  as  indispensable  as  the  ballad-singer ;  and 
in  their  picturesque  attire  as  ornamental  as  the  signs  of  old 
London.  They  were  the  standing  morals,  emblems,  memen- 
toes, dial-mottoes,  the  spittal  sermons,  the  books  for  children, 
the  salutary  checks  and  pauses  to  the  high  and  rushing  tide  of 
greasy  citizenry — 

"  Look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there." 


LSSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  135 

Above  all,  those  old  blind  Tobits  that  used  to  line  the  wall  of 
LincolnVInn  Garden,  before  modern  fastidiousness  had  ex- 
pelled them,  casting  up  their  ruined  orbs  to  catch  a  ray  of  pity, 
and  (if  possible)  of  light,  with  their  faithful  dog-guide  at  their 
feet — whither  are  they  fled  I  or  into  what  corners,  blind  as 
themselves,  have  they  been  driven,  out  of  the  wholesome  air 
and  sun-warmth  ?  immersed  between  four  walls,  in  what  with- 
ering poor-house  do  they  endure  the  penalty  of  double  dark- 
ness, where  the  chink  of  the  dropped  halfpenny  no  more  con- 
soles their  forlorn  bereavement,  far  from  the  sound  of  the 
cheerful  and  hope-stirring  tread  of  the  passenger  ?  Where 
hang    their  useless  staves  1  and   who  will  farm  their  dogs  1 

Have  the  overseers  of  St.  L caused  them  to  be  shot  ?  or 

were  they  tied  up  in  sacks,  and  dropped  into  the  Thames,  at 

the  suggestion  of  B ,  the  mild  Rector  of- — —  1 

Well  fare  the  soul  of  unfastidious  Vincent  Bourne,  most 
classical,  and  at  the  same  time  most  English,  of  the  Latiuists! 
who  has  treated  of  this  human  and  quadrupedal  alliance,  this 
dog  and  man  friendship,  in  the  sweetest  of  his  poems,  the 
Epitaphium  in  Canem,  or  Dog's  Epitaph.  Reader,  peruse  it  ; 
and  say,  if  customary  sights,  which  could  call  up  such  gentle 
poetry  as  this,  were  of  a  nature  to  do  more  harm  or  good  to 
the  moral  sense  of  the  passengers  through  the  daily  thorough- 
fares of  a  vast  and  busy  metropolis 

"  Pauperis  hie  Iri  requiesco  Lyciscus,  herilis, 
Dum  vixi,  tutela  vigil  columenque  senectae, 
Dux  eaeco  fidus;  nee,  me  ducente,  solebat, 
Praetenso  nine  atque  hinc  baculo,  per  miqua  locorum 
Incertam  explorare  viam ;  sed  fila  secutus, 
Quae  dubios  regerent  passiis,  vestigia  t>it:i 
Pizit  inoffenso  gressu  ;  gelidumque  sedile 
In  nudo  nactus  saxo,  qua  praetereuntimn 
Uada  frequens  confluxit,  ibi  miserisque  tenebras 
Lamentis,  noctemque  oculis  ploravit  obortam. 
Ploravit  nee  frustra  ;  obolum  dedit  alter  et  alter. 
Quels  corda  et  inentem  indiderat  natura  benignain. 
Ad  latus  intereajacui  ^oiuttis  henle, 
Vel  mediis  vigil  in  somms  ;  ad  herilia  jussa 
Auresque  atque  animum  arrectus,  sen  frnstula  amice 
Porrexit  sociasque  dapes,  seu  longa  djei 
Tsdia  perpessus,  reditum  sub  nocte  parabat. 
Hi  mores  haec  vita  fuit,  dum  fata  sinebant, 
Dum  neque  languebam  mortis,  nee  inerte  senectu; 
Quae  tandem  obrepsit,  veterique  satellite  caecum 
Orbavit  dominum  :  prisci  sed  gratia  facti 
Ne  tota  intereat,  longos  deleta  per  annos, 
Exiguum  hunc  Irus  tumulum  de  cespite  fecit, 
Etsi  inopsis,  non  ingratae  munuscula  dextrae  ; 
Carmine  signavitque  brevi,  dominumque  canemque 
Quod  memoret  ridumque  canem  dominumque  benignum." 

"Poor  Irus'  faithful  wolf-dog  here  I  lie, 
That  wont  to  tend  my  old  blind  master's  steps, 


136  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

His  guide  and  guard  :  nor,  while  my  service  lasted, 

Had  he  occasion  for  that  staff,  with  which 

He  now  goes  picking  out  his  path  in  fear 

Over  the  highways  and  crossings  ;  but  would  plant, 

Safe  in  the  conduct  of  my  friendly  string, 

A  firm  foot  forward  still,  till  he  had  reach'd 

His  poor  seat  on  some  stone,  nigh  where  the  tide 

Of  passers-by  in  thickest  confluence  flow'd  : 

To  whom  with  loud  and  passionate  laments 

From  morn  to  eve  his  dark  estate  he  wail'd. 

Nor  wail'd  to  all  in  vain  :  some  here  and  there, 

The  well-disposed  and  good,  their  pennies  gave. 

I  meantime  at  his  feet  obsequious  slept ; 

Not  all-asleep  in  sleep,  but  heart  and  ear 

Prick'd  up  at  his  least  motion  ;  to  receive 

At  his  kind  hand  my  customary  crumbs, 

And  common  portion  in  his  feast  of  scraps  ; 

Or  when  night  warn'd  us  homeward,  tired  and  spent 

With  our  long  day  and  tedious  beggary. 

These  were  my  manners,  this  my  way  of  life, 
Till  age  and  slow  disease  me  overtook, 
And  sever'd  from  my  sightless  master's  side. 
But  lest  the  grace  of  so  good  deeds  should  die, 
Through  tract  of  years  in  mute  oblivion  lost, 
This  slender  tomb  of  turf  hath  lrus  reared, 
Cheap  monument  of  no  ungrudging  hand, 
And  with  short  verse  inscribed  it,  to  attest, 
In  long  and  lasting  union  to  attest, 
The  virtues  of  the  beggar  and  his  dog." 

These  dim  eyes  have  in  vain  explored  for  some  months  past 
a  well-known  figure,  or  part  of  the  figure,  of  a  man  who  used 
to  glide  his  comely  upper  half  over  the  pavements  of  London, 
wheeling  along  with  most  ingenious  celerity  upon  a  machine 
of  wood,  a  spectacle  to  natives,  to  foreigners,  and  to  children. 
He  was  of  a  robust  make,  with  a  florid,  sailor-like  complexion, 
and  his  head  was  bare  to  the  storm  and  sunshine.  He  was  a 
natural  curiosity,  a  speculation  to  the  scientific,  a  prodigy  to 
the  simple.  The  infant  would  stare  at  the  mighty  man  brought 
down  to  his  own  level.  The  common  cripple  would  despise 
his  own  pusillanimity,  viewing  the  hale  stoutness  and  hearty 
heart  o.f  this  half-limbed  giant.  Few  but  must  have  noticed 
him  ;  for  the  accident  which  brought  him  low  took  place  du- 
ring the  riots  of  1780,  and  he  has  been  a  groundling  so  long. 
He  seemed  earthborn,  an  Antaeus,  and  to  suck  in  fresh  vig- 
our from  the  soil  which  he  neighboured.  He  was  a  grand 
fragment  ;  as  good  as  an  Elgin  marble.  The  nature  which 
should  have  recruited  his  reft  legs  and  thighs  was  not  lost, 
but  only  retired  into  his  upper  parts,  and  he  was  half  a  Her- 
cules. I  heard  a  tremendous  voice  thundering  and  growling, 
as  before  an  earthquake,  atid  casting  down  my  eyes,  it  was 
this  mandrake  reviling  a  steed  that  had  started  at  his  porten- 
tous appearance.  He  seemed  to  want  but  his  just  stature  to 
have  rent  the  offending  quadruped  in  shivers.     He  was  as  the 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  137 

man-part  of  a  centaur,  from  which  the  horse-half  had  been 
cloven  in  some  dire  Lapithan  controversy.  He  moved  on,  as 
if  be  could  have  made  shift  with  yt-t  half  of  the  body-portion 
which  was  left  him.  The  os  sublime  was  opt  wanting  ;  and 
he  threw  out  yet  a  jolly  countenance  upon  the  heavens. 
Forty-and-two  years  had  he  driven  this  out-of-door  trade,  and 
now  that  his  hair  is  grizzled  in  the  service,  but  his  good  spirits 
no  way  impaired,  because  he  is  not  content  to  exchange  his 
free-air  and  exercise  for  the  restraints  of  a  poor-house,  he  is 
expiating  las  contumacy  in  one  of  those  houses  (ironically 
christened)  of  correction. 

Was  a  daily  spectacle  like  this  to  be  deemed  a  nuisance, 
which  called  for  legal  interference  to  remove  ?  or  not  rather  a 
salutary  and  a  touching  object  to  the  passers-by  in  a  great 
city  ?  Among  her  shows,  her  museums,  and  supplies  for  ever- 
gaping  curiosity,  (and  what  else  but  an  accumulation  of  sights 
— endless  sights — is  a  great  city  ;  or  for  what  else  is  it  desira- 
ble ?)  was  there  not  room  for  one  lusus  (not  ?iaturai,  indeed, 
but)  accidenlium  1  What  if,  in  forty-and-two  years'  going 
about,  the  man  had  scraped  together  enough  to  give  a  portion 
to  his  child  (as  the  rumour  ran)  of  a  few  hundreds — whom 
had  he  injured?  whom  had  he  imposed  upon  ?  The  contrib- 
utors had  enjoyed  their  sight  for  their  pennies.  What  if,  after 
being  exposed  all  dav  to  the  heats,  the  rains,  and  the  frosts  of 
heaven — shuffling  his  ungainly  trunk  along  in  an  elaborate  and 
painful  motion — he  was  enabled  to  retire  at  night  to  enjoy  him- 
self at  a  club  of  his  fellow-cripples  over  a  dish  of  hot  meat 
and  vegetables,  as  the  charge  was  gravely  brought  against  him 
by  a  clergyman  deposing  before  a  house  of  commons'  commit- 
tee— was  this,  or  was  his  truly  paternal  consideration,  which 
(if  a  fact)  deserved  a  statue  rather  than  a  whipping-post,  and 
is  inconsistent  at  least  with  the  exaggeration  of  nocturnal  or- 
gies which  he  has  been  slandered  with — a  reason  that  he 
should  be  deprived  of  his  chosen,  harmless,  nay,  edifying  way 
of  life,  and  be  committed  in  hoary  age  for  a  sturdy  vaga- 
bond ? 

There  was  a  Yorick  once,  whom  it  would  not  have  shamed 
to  have  sat  down  at  the  cripples'  feast,  and  to  have  thrown  in 
his  benediction,  ay,  and  his  mite  too,  for  a  companionable 
symbol.     "  Age,  thou  hast  lost  thy  breed." 

Half  of  these  stories  about  the  prodigious  fortunes  made  by 
begging  are  (I  verily  believe)  misers'  calumnies.  One  was 
touch  talked  of  in  the  public  papers  some  time  since,  and  the 
usual  charitable  inferences  deduced.  A  clerk  in  the  bank 
was  surprised  with  the  announcement  of  a  live  hundred  pound 
legacy  left  him  by  a  person  whose  name  he  was  a  stranger  to, 
12* 


13S  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

It  seems  that  in  his  daily  morning  walks  from  Peckham,  (or 
some  village  thereabouts,)  where  he  lived,  to  his  office,  it  had 
been  his  practice  for  the  last  twenty  years  to  drop  his  half- 
penny duly  into  the  hat  of  some  blind  Bartimeus,  that  sat  beg- 
ging alms  by  the  wayside  in  the  borough.  The  good  old  beg- 
gar recognised  his  daily  benefactor  by  the  voice  only ;  and, 
when  he  died,  left  all  the  amassings  of  hisalms  (that  had  been 
half  a  century,  perhaps,  in  the  accumulating)  to  his  old  bank 
friend.  Was  this  a  story  to  purse  up  people's  hearts  and  pen- 
nies against  giving  an  alms  to  the  blind  ?  or  not  rather  a  beau- 
tiful moral  of  well-directed  charity  on  the  one  part,  and  noble 
gratitude  on  the  other? 

1  sometimes  wish  1  had  been  that  bank  clerk. 

I  seem  to  remember  a  poor  old  grateful  kind  of  creature, 
blinking,  and  looking  up  with  his  no  eyes  in  the  sun — 

Is  it  possible  I  could  have  steeled  my  purse  against  him  ? 

Perhaps  I  had  no  small  change. 

Reader,  do  not  be  frightened  at  the  hard  words,  imposition, 
imposture — give,  and  ask  no  questions.  Cast  thy  bread  upon 
the  waters.  Some  have  unawares  (like  this  bank  clerk)  en- 
tertained angels. 

Shut  not  thy  purse-strings  always  against  painted  distress. 
Act  a  charity  sometimes.  When  a  poor  creature  (outwardly 
and  visibly  such)  comes  before  thee,  do  not  stay  to  inquire 
whether  the  "  seven  small  children,"  in  whose  name  he  im- 
plores thy  assistance,  have  a  veritable  existence.  Rake  not 
into  the  bowels  of  unwelcome  truth  to  save  a  halfpenny.  It 
is  good  to  believe  him.  If- he  be  not  all  that  he  pretendeth, 
give,  and  under  a  personate  father  of  a  family,  think  (if  thou 
pleasest)  that  thou  hast  relieved  an  indigent  bachelor.  When 
they  come  with  their  counterfeit  looks  and  mumping  tones, 
think  them  players.  You  pay  your  money  to  see  a  comedian 
feign  these  things,  which,  concerning  these  poor  people,  thou 
canst  not  certainly  tell  whether  they  are  feigned  or  not. 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG. 

Mankind,  says  a  Chinese  manuscript,  which  my  friend  M. 
was  obliging  enough  to  read  and  explain  to  me,  for  the  first 
seventy  thousand  ages  ate  their  meat  raw,  clawing  or  biting  it 
from  the  living  animal,  just  as  they  do  in  Abyssinia  to  this  day. 
This  period  is  not  obscurely  hinted  at  by  their  great  Confu- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  139 

cius,  in  the  second  chapter  of  his  Mundane  Mutations,  where 
he  designates  a  kind  of  golden  age  by  the  term  Cho-fung,  lit- 
erally the  cook's  holyday. 

The  manuscript  goes  on  to  say,  that  the  art  of  roasting,  or 
rather  broiling,  (which  I  take  to  be  the  elder  brother,)  was 
accidentally  discovered  in  the  manner  following.  The  swine- 
herd, Ho-ti,  having  gone  out  into  the  woods  one  morning,  as 
his  manner  was,  to  collect  mast  for  his  hogs,  left  his  cottage 
in  the  care  of  his  eldest  son  Bo-bo,  a  great  lubberly  boy,  who, 
being  fond  of  playing  with  fire,  as  younkers  of  his  age  com- 
monly arc,  let  some  sparks  escape  into  a  bundle  of  straw, 
which,  kindling  quickly,  spread  the  conflagration  over  every 
part  of  their  poor  mansion,  till  it  was  reduced  to  ashes.  To- 
gether with  the  cottage,  (a  sorry  antediluvian  make-shift  of  a 
building,  you  may  think  it,)  what  was  of  much  more  impor- 
tance, a  fine  litter  of  new-farrowed  pigs,  no  less  than  nine  in 
number,  perished.  China  pigs  have  been  esteemed  a  luxury 
all  over  the  East  from  the  remotest  periods  we  read  of.  Bo-bo 
was  in  the  utmost  consternation,  as  you  may  think,  not  so 
much  for  the  sake  of  the  tenement,  which  his  father  and  he 
could  easily  build  up  again  with  a  few  dry  branches,  and  the 
labour  of  an  hour  or  two,  at  any  time,  as  for  the  loss  of  the 
pigs.  While  he  was  thinking  what  he  should  say  to  his 
father,  and  wringing  his  hands  over  the  smoking  remnants  ot 
one  of  those  untimely  sufferers,  an  odour  assailed  his  nostrils 
unlike  any  scent  which  he  had  before  experienced.  What 
could  it  proceed  from  ? — not  from  the  burnt  cottage — he  had 
smelt  that  smell  before — indeed,  this  was  by  no  means  the 
first  accident  of  the  kind  which  had  occurred  through  the 
negligence  of  this  unlucky  young  firebrand.  Much  less  did 
it  resemble  that  of  any  known  herb,  weed,  or  flower.  A  pre- 
monitory moistening  at  the  same  time  overflowed  his  nether 
lip.  He  knew  not  what  to  think.  He  next  stooped  down  to 
feel  the  pig,  if  there  were  any  signs  of  life  in  it.  He  burnt 
his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he  applied  them  in  his  booby 
fashion  to  his  mouth.  Some  of  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched 
skin  had  come  away  with  his  fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  (in  the  world's  life  indeed,  for  before  him  no  man  had 
known  it)  he  tasted — crackling !  Again  he  felt  and  fumbled 
at  the  pig.  It  did  not  burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he  licked 
ins  fingers  from  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at  length  broke 
into  his  slow  understanding,  that  it  was  the  pig  that  smelt  so, 
and  the  pig  that  tasted  so  delicious  ;  and,  surrendering  him- 
self up  to  the  new-born  pleasure,  he  fell  to  tearing  up  whole 
handfuls  of  the  scorched  skin  with  the  tlesh  next  it,  and  was 
cramming  it  down  his  throat  in  his  beastly  fashion,  when  his 


140  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

sire  entered  amid  the  smoking  rafters,  armed  with  retributory 
cudgel,  and  finding  how  affairs  stood,  began  to  rain  blows  upon 
the  young  rogue's  shoulders,  as  thick  as  hail-stones,  which 
Bo-bo  heeded  not  any  more  than  if  they  had  been  flies.  The 
tickling  pleasure  which  he  experienced  in  his  lower  regions, 
had  rendered  him  quite  callous  to  any  inconveniences  he  might 
feel  in  those  remote  quarters.  His  father  might  lay  on,  but 
he  could  not  beat  him  from  his  pig  till  he  had  fairly  made  an 
end  of  it,  when,  becoming  a  little  more  sensible  of  his  situa- 
tion, something  like  the  following  dialogue  ensued. 

"  You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got  there  devouring  ? 
Is  it  not  enough  that  you  have  burnt  me  down  three  houses 
with  your  dog's  tricks,  and  be  hanged  to  you,  but  you  must 
be  eating  fire,  and  I  know  not  what — what  have  you  got  there, 
1  say  ?" 

"  Oh,  father,  the  pig,  the  pig,  do  come  and  taste  how  nice 
the  burnt  pig  eats." 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  with  horror.  He  cursed  his  son, 
and  he  cursed  himself,  that  ever  he  should  beget  a  son  that 
should  eat  burnt  pig. 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfully  sharpened  since  morn- 
ing, soon  raked  out  another  pig,  and,  fairly  rending  it  asunder, 
thrust  the  lesser  half  by  main  force  into  the  fists  of  Ho-ti,  still 
shouting  out,  "  Eat,  eat,  eat  the  burnt  pig,  father,  only  taste — 
oh  Lord," — with  such-like  barbarous  ejaculations,  cramming 
all  the  while  as  if  he  would  choke. 

Ho-ti  trembled  every  joint  while  he  grasped  the  abominable 
thing,  wavering  whether  he  should  not  put  his  son  to  death 
for  an  unnatural  young  monster,  when  the  crackling  scorch- 
ing his  fingers,  as  it  had  done  his  son's,  and  applying  the 
same  remedy  to  them,  he  in  his  turn  tasted  some  of  its  flavour, 
which,  make  what  sour  mouths  he  would  for  a  pretence,  proved 
not  altogether  displeasing  to  him.  In  conclusion,  (for  the 
manuscript  here  is  a  little  tedious,)  both  father  and  son  fairly 
sat  down  to  the  mess,  and  never  left  off  till  they  had  de- 
spatched all  that  remained  of  the  litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  secret  escape, 
for  the  neighbours  would  certairdy  have  stoned  them  for  a 
couple  of  abominable  wretches,  who  could  think  of  improving 
upon  the  good  meat  which  God  had  sent  them.  Neverthe- 
less, strange  stories  got  about.  It  was  observed  that  Ho-ti's 
cottage  was  burnt  down  now  more  frequently  than  ever.  No- 
thing but  fires  from  this  time  forward.  Some  would  break 
out  in  broad  day,  others  in  the  night-time.  As  often  as  the 
sow  farrowed,  so  sure  was  the  house  of  Ho-ti  to  be  in  a  blaze  ; 
and  Ho-ti  himself,  which  was  the  more  remarkable,  instead 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  141 

of  chastising  his  son,  seemed  to  grow  more  indulgent  to  him 
than  ever.     At  length  they  were  watched,  the  terrible  mystery 

discovered,  and  father  and  son  summoried  to  take  their  trial 
at  Peking,  then  an  inconsiderable  assize  town.  Evidence  was 
given,  the  obnoxious  food  itself  produced  in  court,' and  verdict 
about  to  be  pronounced,  when  the  foreman  of  the  jury  begged 
that  some  of  the  burnt  pig,  of  which  the  culprits  stood  accused, 
might  be  handed  into  the  box.  lie  handled  it.  and  thev  all 
handled  it,  and  burning  their  fingers,  as  Bo-bo  and  his  lather 
had  done  before  them,  and  nature  prompting  to  each  of  them 
the  same  remedy,  against  the  face  of  all  the  facts,  and  the 
clearest  charge  which  judge  had  ever  given — to  the  surprise 
of  the  whole  court,  townsfolk,  Bttfengers,  reporters,  and  all 
present — without  leaving  the  box,  or  any  manner  of  consul- 
tation whatever,  they  brought  in  a  simultaneous  verdict  of  Not 
Guilty. 

The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  winked  at  the  mani- 
fest iniquity  of  the  decision  ;  and,  when  the  court  was  dis- 
missed, went  privately,  and  bought  up  all  the  pigs  that  could 
be  had  for  love  or  money.  In  a  few  days  his  lordship's  town- 
house  was  observed  to  be  on  fire.  The  thing  took  wing,  and 
now-  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  fires  in  every  direction. 
Fuel  and  pigs  grew  enormously  dear  all  over  the  district. 
The  ensurance-orhces  one  and  all  shut  up  shop.  People  built 
slighter  and  slighter  every  day,  until  it  was  feared  that  the 
very  science  of  architecture  would  in  no  long  time  be  lost  to 
the  world.  Thus  this  custom  of  firing  houses  continued,  till, 
in  process  of  time,  says  my  manuscript,  a  sage  arose,  like  our 
Locke,  who  made  a  discovery,  that  the  flesh  of  swine,  or  in- 
deed of  any  other  animal,  might  be  cooked  (burnt  as  they  called 
it)  without  the  necessity  of  consuming  a  whole  house  to  dress 
it.  Then  first  began  the  rude  form  of  a  gridiron.  Roasting 
by  the  string,  or  spit,  came  in  a  century  or  two  later,  I  forget 
in  whose  dynasty.  By  such  slow  degrees,  concludes  the 
manuscript,  do  the  most  useful,  and  seemingly  the  most  obvi- 
ous arts,  make  their  way  among  mankind. 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  account  above 
given,  it  must  be  agreed,  that  if  a  worthy  pretext  for  so  dan- 
gerous an  experiment  as  setting  houses  on  fire  (especially  in 
these  days)  could  be  assigned  in  favour  of  any  culinary  object, 
that  pretext  and  excuse  might  be  found  in  roast  fio. 

Of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  whole  mundus  edibitis,  I  will 
maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate — prince.ps  obsoniorum. 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers — things  between  pig 
and  pork — those  hobbydehoys — but  a  young  and  tender  suck- 
ling— under  a  moon  old — guiltless  as  yet  of  the  sty^-with  no 


142  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

original  speck  of  the  amor  immunditw,  the  hereditary  failing 
of  the  first  parent  yet  manifest — his  voice  as  yet  not  broken, 
but  something  between  a  childish  treble  and  a  grumble — the 
mild  forerunner,  or  praludium,  of  a  grunt. 

He  must  he  roasted.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  our  ancestors 
ale  them  seethed,  or  boiled — but  what  a  sacrifice  of  the  ex- 
terior tegument ! 

There  is  no  flavour  comparable,  I  will  contend,  to  that  of 
the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not  over-roasted,  crackling, 
as  it  is  well  called — the  very  teeth  are  invited  to  their  share 
of  the  pleasure  at  this  banquet  in  overcoming  the  coy,  brittle 
resistance — with  the  adhesive  oleaginous — oh  call  it  not  fat 
■ — but  an  indefinable  sweetness  growing  up  to  it — the  tender 
blossoming  of  fat — fat  cropped  in  the  bud — taken  in  the  shoot 
— in  the  first  innocence — the  cream  and  quintessence  of  the 
child-pig's  yet  pure  food — the  lean,  no  lean,  but  a  kind  of 
animal  manna — or,  rather,  fat  and  lean  (if  it  must  be  so)  so 
blended  and  running  into  each  other,  that  both  together  make 
but  one  ambrosial  result,  or  common  substance. 

Behold  him  while  he  is  doing — it  seemeth  rather  a  refresh- 
ing warmth,  than  a  scorching  heat,  that  he  is  so  passive  to. 
How  equably  he  twirleth  round  the  string  !  Now  he  is  just 
done.  To  see  the  extreme  sensibility  of  that  tender  age,  he 
hath  wept  out  his  pretty  eyes — radiant  jellies — shooting  stars. 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how  meek  he  lieth  ! 
— wouldst  thou  have  had  this  innocent  grow  up  to  the  grossness 
and  indocility  which  too  often  accompany  maturer  swinehood  1 
Ten  to  one  he  would  have  proved  a  glutton,  a  sloven,  an  ob- 
stinate, disagreeable  animal — wallowing  in  all  manner  of 
filthy  conversation — from  these  sins  he  is  happily  snatched 
away — 

"  Ere  sin  could  blight,  or  sorrow  fade, 
Death  came  with  timely  care" — 

his  memory  is  odoriferous — no  clown  curseth,  while  his  stom- 
ach half  rejecteth,  the  rank  bacon — no  coal-heaver  bolteth 
him  in  reeking  sausages — he  hath  a  fair  sepulchre  in  the 
grateful  stomach  of  the  judicious  epicure — and  for  such  a  tomb 
might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  sapors.  Pineapple  is  great.  She  is 
indeed  almost  too  transcendent — a  delight,  if  not  sinful,  yet  so 
like  to  sinning,  that  really  a  tender-conscienced  person  would 
do  well  to  pause — too  ravishing  for  mortal  taste,  she  woundeth 
and  excoriateth  the  lips  that  approach  her — like  lovers'  kisses, 
she  biteth — she  is  a  pleasure  bordering  on  pain  from  the 
fierceness  and  insanity  of  her  relish — but  she  stoppeth  at  the 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  143 

palate — she  meddleth  not  with  the  appetite — and  the  coarsest 
hunger  might  barter  her  consistently  lor  a  mutton-chop. 

Pig — let  me  speak  his  praise  —  is  no  less  provocative  of  the 
appetite  than  he  is  satisfactory  to  the  criticaluess  of  the  cen- 
sorious palate.  The  strong  man  may  batten  on  him,  and  the 
weakling  refuseth  not  his  mild  juices'. 

Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bundle  of  virtues 
and  vices,  inexplicably  intertwisted,  and  not  to  be  unravelled 
without  hazard,  he  is — good  throughout.  No  part  of  him  is 
better  or  worse  than  another.  He  helpeth,  as  far  as  his  little 
means  extend,  all  around,  lie  is  the  least  envious  of  banquets. 
He  is  all  neighbours'  fare. 

1  am  one  of  those  who  freely  and  ungrudgingly  impart  a 
share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  which  fall  to  their  lot  (few 
as  mine  are  in  this  kind)  to  a  friend.  I  protest  I  take  as  great 
an  interest  in  my  friend's  pleasures,  his  relishes,  and  proper 
satisfactions,  as  in  mine  own.  "  Presents,"  I  often  say,  "  en- 
dear absents."  Hares,  pheasants,  partridges,  snipes,  barn- 
door chickens,  (those  "  tame  villatic  fowl,")  capons,  plovers 
brawn,  barrels  of  oysters,  I  dispense  as  freely  as  I  receive 
them.  I  love  to  taste  them,  as  it  were,  upon  the  tongue  of 
my  friend.  But  a  slop  must  be  put  somewhere.  One  would 
not,  like  Lear,  "  give  everything."  I  make  my  stand  upor 
pig.  Methinks  it  is  an  ingratitude  to  the  Giver  of  all  good 
llavours  to  extra-domiciliate,  or  send  out  of  the  house,  slight? 
jngjy,  (under  pretext  of  friendship,  or  I  know  not  what,)  a 
blessing  so  particularly  adapted,  predestined,  1  may  say,  to  my 
individual  palate — it  argues  an  insensibility. 

I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind  at  school. 
My  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted  from  me  at  the  end  of  a 
holyday  without  stuffing  a  sweetmeat  or  some,  nice  thing  into 
my  pocket,  had  dismissed  me  one  evening  with  a  smoking  plum- 
cake,  fresh  from  the  oven.  In  my  way  to  school  fit  was  over 
London  bridge)  a  gray-headed  old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have  no 
doubt  at  this  time  of  day  that  he  was  a  counterfeit).  I  had  no 
pence  to  console  him  with,  and  in  the  vanity  of  self-denial, 
and  the  very  coxcombry  of  charity,  schoolboy-like,  I  made  him 
a  present  of— the  whole  cake  !  I  walked  on  a  little,  buoyed 
up,  as  one  is  on  such  occasions,  with  a  sweet  soothing  of  self- 
satisfaction  ;  but  before  I  had  got  to  the  end  of  the  bridge 
my  better  feelings  returned,  and  I  burst  into  tears,  thinking 
how  ungrateful  I  had  been  to  my  good  aunt,  to  go  and  give  her 
good  gift  away  to  a  stranger  that  I  had  never  seen  before, 
and  who  might  be  a  bad  man  for  aught  I  knew  ;  and  then  I 
thought  of  the  pleasure  my  aunt  would  be  taking  in  thinking 
that  I — I  myself,  and  not  another — would  eat  her  nice  cake 


144  ESSAYS    OF   ELIA. 

— and  what  should  I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I  saw  her — 
how  naughty  I  was  to  part  with  her  pretty  present — and  the 
odour  of  that  spicy  cake  came  back  upon  my  recollection, 
and  the  pleasure  and  the  curiosity  I  had  taken  in  seeing  her 
make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  sent  it  to  the  oven,  and  how  dis- 
appointed she  would  feel  that  I  had  never  had  a  bit  of  it  in 
my  mouth  at  last — and  I  blamed  my  impertinent  spirit  of 
almsgiving,  and  out-of-place  hypocrisy  of  goodness,  and 
above  all  I  wished  never  to  see  the  face  again  of  that  insid- 
ious, good-for-nothing,  old,  gray  impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of  sacrificing 
these  tender  victims.  We  read  of  pigs  whipped  to  death  with 
something  of  a  shock,  as  we  hear  of  any  other  obsolete  cus- 
tom. The  age  of  discipline  is  gone  by,  or  it  would  be  curi- 
ous to  inquire  (in  a  philosophical  light  merely)  what  effect 
this  process  might  have  towards  intenerating  and  dulcifying  a 
substance,  naturally  so  mild  and  dulcet  as  the  flesh  of  young 
pigs.  It  looks  like  refining  a  violet.  Yet  we  should  be  cau- 
tious, while  we  condemn  the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure 
the  wisdom  of  the  practice.     It  might  impart  a  gusto. 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by  the  young  stu- 
dents when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's,  and  maintained  with  much 
learning  and  pleasantry  on  both  sides,  "  Whether,  supposing 
that  the  flavour  of  a  pig  who  obtained  his  death  by  whipping 
(per  flagellationem  extremam)  superadded  a  pleasure  upon 
the  palate  of  a  man  more  intense  than  any  possible  suffering 
we  can  conceive  in  the  animal,  is  man  justified  in  using  that 
method  of  putting  the  animal  to  death?"  I  forget  the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly,  a  few  bread 
crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and  brains,  and  a  dash  of  mild 
sage.  But  bamish,  dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I  beseech  you,  the  whole 
onion  tribe.  Barbecue  your  whole  hogs  to  your  palate,  steep 
them  in  shalots,  stuff  them  out  with  the  plantations  of  the  rank 
and  guilty  garlic  :  you  cannot  poison  them,  or  make  them 
stronger  than  they  are — but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling — a 
flower. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  145 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  BEHA- 
VIOUR OF  MARRIED  PEOPLE. 

As  a  single  man,  I  have  spout  a  <;ood  deal  of  my  time  in 
noting  down  the  inlirmith \s  of  married  people,  to  console  my- 
self for  those  superior  pleasures  which  they  tell  me  I  have 
lost  by  remaining  as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and  their  wives  ever 
made  any  great  impression  upon  me,  or  had  much  tendency 
to  strengthen  me  in  those  anti-social  resolutions,  which  I  took 
up  long  ago  upon  more  substantial  considerations.  What 
oftenest  offends  me  at  the  houses  of  married  persons  where  I 
visit,  is  an  error  of  quite  a  different  description  ;  it  is  that 
they  arc  too  loving. 

Not  too  loving  neither :  that  does  not  explain  my  meaning. 
Besides,  why  should  that  offend  me?  The  very  act  of  sep- 
arating themselves  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  to  have  the 
fuller  enjoyment  of  each  other's  society,  implies  that  they 
prefer  one  another  to  all  the  world. 

But  what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this  preference 
so  undisguiscilly,  they  perk  it  up  in  the  faces  of  us  single 
people  so  shamelessly,  you  cannot  be  in  their  company  a  mo- 
ment without  being  made  to  feel,  by  some  indirect  hint  or 
open  avowal,  that  you  are  not  the  object  of  this  preference. 
Now  there  are  some  things  which  give  no  offence,  while  im- 
plied or  taken  for  granted  merely  ;  but,  expressed,  there  is 
much  offence  in  them.  If  a  man  wen:  to  accost  the  first 
homely-featured  or  plain-dressed  young  woman  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, and  tell  her  bluntly  that  she  was  not  handsome 
ur  rich  enough  for  him,  and  he  could  not  marry  her,  he  would 
deserve  to  be  kicked  for  his  ill  manners  ;  yet  no  less  is  im- 
plied in  the  Pact",  that,  having  access  and  opportunity  of  putting 
the  question  to  her,  he  has  never  yet  thought  fit  to  do  it.  The 
young  woman  understands  this  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  put 
into  words  ;  but  no  reasonable  young  woman  would  think  of 
making  this  the  ground  of  a  quarrel.  Just  as  little  right  have 
a  married  couple  to  tell  me  by  speeches,  and  looks  that  are 
scarce  less  plain  than  speeches,  that  I  am  not  the  happy  man 
— the  lady's  choice.  It  is  enough  that  1  know  I  am  not :  I 
do  not  want  this  perpetual  reminding. 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches  may  be  made 
sufficiently  mortifyipg  ;  but  these  admit  of  a  palliative.  The 
13    '  G 


146  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

knowledge  which  is  brought  out  to  insult  me,  may  acciden- 
tally improve  me  ;  and  in  the  rich  man's  houses  and  pictures, 
his  parks  and  gardens,  I  have  a  temporary  usufruct  at  least. 
But  the  display  of  married  happiness  has  none  of  these  pal- 
liatives :  it  is  throughout  pure,  unrecompensed,  unqualified 
insult. 

Marriage  by  its  best  title  is  a  monopoly,  and  not  of  the 
least  invidious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning  of  most  possessors  of 
any  exclusive  privilege  to  keep  their  advantage  as  much  out 
of  sight  as  possible,  that  their  less-favoured  neighbours,  see- 
ing little  of  the  benefit,  may  the  less  be  disposed  to  question 
the  right.  But  these  married  monopolists  thrust  the  most  ob- 
noxious part  of  their  patent  into  our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that  entire  compla- 
cency and  satisfaction  which  beam  in  the  countenances  of  a 
new-married  couple — in  that  of  the  lady  particularly ;  it  tells 
you,  that  her  lot  is  disposed  of  in  this  world  ;  that  you  can 
have  no  hopes  of  her.  It  is  true,  I  have  none  ;  nor  wishes 
either  perhaps  ;  but  this  is  one  of  those  truths  which  ought, 
as  I  said  before,  to  be  taken  for  granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  which  those  people  give  themselves, 
founded  on  the  ignorance  of  us  unmarried  people,  would  be 
more  offensive  if  they  were  less  irrational.  We  will  allow 
them  to  understand  the  mysteries  belonging  to  their  own  craft 
better  than  we  who  have  not  had  the  happiness  to  be  made 
free  of  the  company :  but  their  arrogance  is  not.  content  within 
these  limits.  If  a  single  person  presume  to  offer  his  opinion 
in  their  presence,  though  upon  the  most  indifferent  subject, 
he  is  immediately  silenced  as  an  incompetent  person.  Nay, 
a  young  married  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  who,  the  best  of 
the  jest  was,  had  not  changed  her  condition  above  a  fortnight 
before,  in  a  question  on  which  I  had  the  misfortune  to  differ 
from  her,  respecting  the  properest  mode  of  breeding  oysters 
for  the  London  market,  had  the  assurance  to  ask  with  a 
sneer  how  such  an  old  bachelor  as  I  could  pretend  to  know 
anything  about  such  matters. 

But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing  to  the  airs 
which  these  creatures  give  themselves  when  they  come,  as 
they  generally  do,  to  have  children.  When  I  consider  how 
little  of  a  rarity  children  are — that  every  street  and  blind  al- 
ley swarms  with  them — that  the  poorest  people  commonly 
have  them  in  most  abundance — that  there  are  few  marriages 
that  are  not  blessed  with  at  least  one  of  these  bargains — how 
often  they  turn  out  ill,  and  defeat  the  fond  hopes  of  their  pa- 
rents, taking  to  vicious  courses,  which  end  in  poverty,  dis- 
grace, the  gallows,  &c,  I  cannot  for  my  life  tell  what  cause 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  1  17 

for  pride  there  can  possibly  be  in  having  them.  If  they  were 
young  phenixes,  indeed,  that  were  bom  but  one  in  a  year, 
there  might  be  a  pretext.      Hut  when  they  are  so  common — 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  which  they  assume 
with  their  husbands  on  these  occasions.  Let  them  look,  to 
that.  But  why  ire,  who  are  not  their  natural-born  subjects, 
should  be  expected  to  bring  our  spices,  myrrh,  and  incense — 
our  tribute  and  homage  of  admiration — I  do  not  see. 

"  Like  as  the  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant,  even  so  are 
the  young  children :"  so  says  the  excellent  office  in  our 
Prayer-book  appointed  for  the  churching  of  women.  "  Hap- 
py is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them  :"  so  say  1  ; 
but  then  don't  let  him  discharge  his  quiver  upon  us  that  are 
weaponless  ;  let  them  be  arrows,  but  not  to  gall  and  stick 
us.  I  have  generally  observed  that  these  arrows  are  double- 
headed  ;  they  have  two  forks,  to  be  sure  to  hit  with  one  or 
the  other.  As,  for  instance,  where  you  come  into  a  house 
which  is  full  of  children,  if  you  happen  to  take  no  notice  of 
them  (you  are  thinking  of  something  else,  perhaps,  and  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  their  innocent  caresses)  you  are  set  down  as 
untractable,  morose,  a  hater  of  children.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  you  find  them  more  than  usually  engaging — if  you  are  taken 
with  their  pretty  manners,  and  set  about  in  earnest  to  romp' 
and  play  with  them,  some  pretext  or  other  is  sure  to  be  found 
for  sending  them   out  of  the   room ;  they  are  too   noisy  or 

boisterous,  or  Mr.  does  not  like  children.     With  one  or 

other  of  these  forks  the  arrow  is  sure  to  hit  you. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense  with  toying 
with  their  brats,  if  it  gives  them  any  pain;  but  I  think  it  un- 
reasonable to  be  called  upon  to  love  them,  where  I  see  no  oc- 
casion—  to  love  a  whole  family,  perhaps  eight,  nine,  or  ten, 
indiscriminately — to  love  all  the  pretty  dears,  because  chil- 
dren are  so  engaging. 

1  know  there  is  a  proverb,  "  Love  me,  love  my  dog  ;"  that 
is  not  always  so  very  practicable,  particularly  if  the  dog  be 
set  upon  you  to  tease  you  or  snap  at  you  in  sport.  But  a  dog 
or  a  lesser  thing — any  inanimate  substance,  as  a  keepsake,  a 
watch,  or  a  ring,  a  tree,  or  the  place  where  we  last  parted  when 
m\  friend  went  away  upon  a  long  absence,  I  can  make  shift  to 
love,  because  I  love  him,  and  anything  that  reminds  me  of 
him  ;  provided  it  be  in  its  nature  indifferent,  and  apt  to  re- 
ceive whatever  hue  fancy  can  give  it.  But  children  have  a 
real  character  and  an  essential  heitiii  of  themselves  :  they 
are  amiable  or  unamiable  per  se  ;  I  must  love  or  hate  them  as 
1  see  cause  for  either  in  their  qualities.  A  child's  nature  is 
too  serious  a  thing  to  admit  of  its  being  regarded  as  a  mere 

G  2 


148  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

appendage  to  another  being,  and  to  be  loved  or  hated  accord- 
ingly :  they  stand  with  me  upon  their  own  stock,  as  much  as 
men  and  women  do.  Oh !  but  you  will  say,  sure  it  is  an  at- 
tractive age — there  is  something  in  the  tender  years  of  infan- 
cy that  of  itself  charms  us.  That  is  the  very  reason  why  I 
am  more  nice  about  them.  I  know  that  a  sweet  child  is  the 
sweetest  thing  in  nature,  not  even  excepting  the  delicate 
creatures  which  bear  them ;  but  the  prettier  the  kind  of  a 
thing  is,  the  more  desirable  it  is  that  it  should  be  pretty  of  its 
kind.  One  daisy  differs  not  much  from  another  in  glory  ;  but 
a  violet  should  look  and  smell  the  daintiest.  I  was  always 
rather  squeamish  in  my  women  and  children. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst :  one  must  be  admitted  into  their 
familiarity  at  least,  before  they  can  complain  of  inattention. 
It  implies  visits,  and  some  kind  of  intercourse.  But  if  the 
husband  be  a  man  with  whom  you  have  lived  on  a  friendly 
footing  before  marriage — if  you  did  not  come  in  on  the  wife's 
side — if  you  did  not  sneak  into  the  house  in  her  train,  but 
were  an  old  friend  in  fast  habits  of  intimacy  before  their  court- 
ship was  so  much  as  thought  on — look  about  you — your  ten- 
ure is  precarious — before  a  twelvemonth  shall  roll  over  your 
head  you  shall  rind  your  old  friend  gradually  grow  cool  and 
altered  towards  you,  and  at  last  seek  opportunities  of  breaking 
with  you.  I  have  scarce  a  married  friend  of  my  acquaintance, 
upon  whose  firm  faith  I  can  rely,  whose  friendship  did  not 
commence  after  the  period  of  his  marriage.  With  some  limi- 
tations they  can  endure  that ;  but  that  the  good  man  should 
have  dared  to  enter  into  a  solemn  league  of  friendship  in 
which  they  were  not  consulted,  though  it  happened  before 
they  knew  him — before  they  that  are  now  man  and  wife  ever 
met — this  is  intolerable  to  them.  Every  long  friendship, 
every  old  authentic  intimacy,  must  be  brought  into  their  office 
to  be  new  stamped  with  their  currency,  as  a  sovereign  prince 
calls  in  the  good  old  money  that  was  coined  in  some  reign 
before  he  was  born  or  thought  of,  to  be  new  marked  and 
minted  with  the  stamp  of  his  authority,  before  he  will  let  it 
pass  current  in  the  world.  You  may  guess  what  luck  gener- 
ally befalls  such  a  rusty  piece  of  metal  as  I  am  in  these  new 
mintings. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  which  they  take  to  insult  and 
worm  you  out  of  their  husband's  confidence.  Laughing  at  all 
you  say  with  a  kind  of  wonder,  as  if  you  were  a  queer  kind 
of  fellow  that  said  good  things,  but  an  oddity,  is  one  of  the 
ways:  they  have  a  particular  kind  of  stare  lor  the  purpose 
— till  at  last  the  husband,  who  used  to  defer  to  your  judgment, 
and  would  pass  over  some  excrescences  of  understanding  and 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  M9 

manner  for  the  sake  of*a  general  vein  of  observation  (not 
quite  vulgar)  which  he  perceived  in  you,  begin  to  suspect 
whether  you  are  not  altogether  a  humourist — a  fellow  well 
enough  to  have  consorted  with  in  his  bachelor  daws,  but  not 
quite  so  proper  to  be  introduced  to  ladies.  This  may  be  called 
the  staring  way  ;  and  is  that  which  has  oftenest  been  put  in 
practice  against  me.  Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or 
the  way  of  irony  :  that  is,  where  they  find  you  an  object  of 
especial  regard  with  their  husband,  who  is  not  so  easily  to  be 
shaken  from  the  lasting  attachment  founded  on  esteem  which 
he  has  conceived  towards  you,  by  never-qualified  exaggera- 
tions to  cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do,  till  the  good  man,  who 
understands  well  enough  that  it  is  all  done  in  compliment  to 
him,  grows  weary  of  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  is  due  to  so 
much  candour,  and  by  relaxing  a  little  on  his  part,  and  taking 
down  a  peg  or  two  in  his  enthusiasm,  sinks  at  length  to  the 
kindly  level  of  moderate  esteem — that  "decent  affection  and 
complacent  kindness"  towards  you,  where  she  herself  can 
join  in  sympathy  with  him  without  much  stretch  and  violence 
to  her  sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  accomplish  so  de- 
sirable a  purpose  are  infinite)  is,  with  a  kind  of  innocent  sim- 
plicity, continually  to  mistake  what  it  was  which  first  made 
their  husband  fond  of  you.  If  an  esteem  for  something  excel- 
lent in  your  moral  character  was  that  which  riveted  the  chain 
which  she  is  to  break,  upon  any  imaginary  discovery  of  a 
want  of  poignancy   in  your  conversation,  she   will   cry,   "  I 

thought,  my  dear,  you  described  your  friend,  Mr. ,  as  a 

great  wit."  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  for  some  supposed 
charm  in  your  conversation  that  he  first  grew  to  like  you,  and 
wras  content  for  this  to  overlook  some  trifling  irregularities  in 
your  moral  deportment,  upon  the  first  notice  of  any  of  these 
she  as  readily  exclaims,  "  This,  my  dear,  is  your  good  Mr. 
."  One  good  lady  whom  I  took  the  liberty  of  expostula- 
ting with  for  not  showing  me  quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought 
due  to  her  husband's  old  friend,  had  the  candour  to  confess  ta 

me  that  she  had  often  heard  Mr. speak  of  me  before  mat 

riage,  and  that  she  had  conceived  a  great  desire  to  be  au 
quainted  with  me,  but  that  the  sight  of  me  had  very  much  Ji* 
appointed  her  expectations  ;  for  from  her  husband's  rep.  f.dOu 
tations  of  me,  she  had  formed  B  notion  that  she  was  to  see  , 
line,  tall,  officer-like  looking  man,  (I  use  her  very  vosde,)  the 
\ery  reverse  of  which   proved  to  be   the   truth      'I  hi*   was 
candid;  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to  ask  her,  in  .e'.urn,  how 
she  came  to  pitch  upon  a  standard  of  pei^on^   accomplish- 
ments for  her  husband's  friends  which  differed  so  much  from 
13* 


150  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

his  own ;  for  my  friend's  dimensions  as  near  as  possible  ap- 
proximate to  mine  ;  he  standing  five  feet  five  in  his  shoes,  in 
which  I  have  the  advantage  of  him  by  about  half  an  inch ; 
and  he,  no  more  than  myself,  exhibiting  any  indications  of  a 
martial  character  in  his  air  or  countenance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  which  I  have  en- 
countered in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit  at  their  houses.  To 
enumerate  them  all  would  be  a  vain  endeavour  :  I  shall  there- 
fore just  glance  at  the  very  common  impropriety  of  which 
married  ladies  are  guilty,  of  treating  us  as  if  we  were  their 
husbands,  and  vice  versa.  I  mean,  when  they  use  us  with 
familiarity,  and  their  husbands  with  ceremony.  Testacea, 
for  instance,  kept  me  the  other  night  two  or  three  hours  be- 
yond my  usual  time  of  supping,  while  she  was  fretting  because 

Mr. did  not  come  home  till  the  oysters  were  all  spoiled, 

rather  than  she  would  be  guilty  of  the  impoliteness  of  touch- 
ing one  in  his  absence.  This  was  reversing  the  point  of 
good  manners  :  for  ceremony  is  an  invention  to  take  off 
the  uneasy  feeling  which  we  derive  from  knowing  ourselves 
to  be  less  the  object  of  love  and  esteem  with  a  fellow-creature 
than  some  other  person  is.  It  endeavours  to  make  up,  by  su- 
perior attentions  in  little  points,  for  that  invidious  preference 
which  it  is  forced  to  deny  in  the  greater.  Had  Testacea  kept 
the  oysters  back  for  me,  and  withstood  her  husband's  impor- 
tunities to  go  to  supper,  she  would  have  acted  according  to 
the  strict  rules  of  propriety.  I  know  no  ceremony  that  ladies 
are  bound  to  observe  to  their  husbands,  beyond  the  point  of 
a  modest  behaviour  and  decorum :  therefore  I  must  protest 
against  the  vicarious  gluttony  of  Cerasia,  who  at  her  own 
table  sent  away  a  dish  of  Morellas,  which  I  was  applying  to 
with  great  good-will,  to  her  husband  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table,  and  recommended  a  plate  of  less  extraordinary  goose- 
berries to  my  unwedded  palate  in  their  stead.  Neither  can  I 
excuse  the  wanton  affront  of . 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married  acquaintance 
by  Roman  denominations.  Let  them  amend  and  change 
their  manners,  or  I  promise  to  record  the  full-length  English 
of  their  names,  to  the  terror  of  all  such  desperate  offenders  in 
future. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  151 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 

The  casual  sight  of  an  old  play-hill,  which  I  picked  up 
the  other  day — I  know  not  by  what  chance  it  was  preserved 
so  long — tempts  me  to  call  to  mind  a  few  of  the  players  who 
make  the  principal  figure  in  it.  It  presents  the  cast  of  parts 
in  the  Twelfth  Night,  at  the  old  Drury-Lane  Theatre,  two-and- 
thirty  years  ago.  There  is  something  very  touching  in  these 
old  remembrances.  They  make  us  think  how  we  once  used 
to  read  a  play-bill — not,  as  now,  peradventure,  singling  out 
a  favourite  performer,  and  casting  a  negligent  eye  over  the 
rest;  but  spelling  out  every  name,  down  to  the  very  mutes 
and  servants  of  the  scene  ;  when  it  was  a  matter  of  no  small 
moment  to  us  whether  Whitfield  or  Packer  took  the  part  of 
Fabian;  when  Benson,  and  Burton,  and  Phillimore — names 
of  small  account — had  an  importance  beyond  what  we  can  be 
content  to  attribute  now  to  the  time's  best  actors.  "  Orsino, 
by  Mr.  Barrymore."  What  a  full  Shakspearian  sound  it  car- 
ries !  how  fresh  to  memory  arise  the  image  and  the  manner 
of  the  gentle  actor  ! 

Those  who  have  only  seen  Mrs.  Jordan  within  the  last  ten 
or  fifteen  years,  can  have  no  adequate  notion  of  her  perform- 
ance of  such  parts  as  Ophelia;  Helena,  in  All's  Well  that 
Ends  Well  ;  and  Viola  in  this  play.  Her  voice  had  latterly 
acquired  a  coarseness,  which  suited  well  enough  with  her 
Nells  and  Hoydens,  but  in  those  days  it  sank,  with  her  steady 
melting  eye,  into  the  heart.  Her  joyous  parts — in  which  her 
memory  now  chiefly  lives — in  her  youth  were  outdone  by  her 
plaintive  ones.  There  is  no  giving  an  account  how  she  de- 
livered the  disguised  story  of  her  love  for  Orsino.  It  was  no 
set  speech,  that  she  had  foreseen,  so  as  to  weave  it  into  an 
harmonious  period,  line  necessarily  following  line,  to  make 
up  the  music — yet  I  have  heard  it  so  spoken,  or  rather  read, 
not  without  its  grace  and  beauty — but,  when  she  had  declared 
her  sister's  history  to  be  a  "  blank,"  and  that  she  "  never  told 
her  love,"  there  was  a  pause,  as  if  the  story  had  ended — and 
then  the  image  of  the  "  worm  in  the  bud"  came  up  as  a  new 
suggestion — and  the  heightened  image  of"  Patience"  still  fol- 
lowed after  that,  as  by  some  growing  (and  not  mechanical) 
process,  thought  springing  up  after  thought,  I  would  almost 
say,  as  they  were  watered  by  her  tears.  So  in  those  fine 
lines — 


152  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

"  Write  royal  cantos  of  contemned  love — 
Hallow  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills — " 

there  was  no  preparation  made  in  the  foregoing  image  lor 
that  which  was  to  follow.  She  used  no  rhetoric  in  her  pas- 
sion-; or  it  was  nature's  own  rhetoric,  most  legitimate  then, 
when  it  seemed  altogether  without  rule  or  law. 

Mrs.  Powel,  (now  Mrs.  Renard,)  then  in  the  pride  of  her 
beauty,  made  an  admirable  Olivia.  She  was  particularly  ex- 
cellent in  her  unbending  ^scenes  in  conversation  with  the 
clown.  I  have  seen  some  Olivias — and  those  very  sensible 
actresses  too — who  in  th?se  interlocutions  have  seemed  to 
set  their  wits  at  the  jester,  and  to  vie  conceits  with  him  in 
downright  emulation.  But  she  used  him  for  her  sport,  like 
what  he  was,  to  trifle  a  leisure  sentence  or  two  with,  and  then 
to  be  dismissed,  and  she  to  be  the  great  lady  still.  She 
touched  the  imperious  fantastic  humour  of  the  character  with 
nicety.     Her  fine  spacious  person  filled  the  scene. 

The  part  of  Malvolio  has  in  my  judgment  been  so  often 
misunderstood,  and  the  general  merits  of  the  actor  who  then 
played  it  so  unduly  appreciated,  that  I  shall  hope  for  pardon 
if  I  am  a  little  prolix  upon  these  points. 

Of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  my  time — a  melancholy 
phrase  if  taken  aright,  reader — Bensley  had  most  of  the  swell 
of  soul,  was  greatest  in  the  delivery  of  heroic  conceptions, 
the  emotions  consequent  upon  the  presentment  of  a  great  idea 
to  the  fancy.  He  had  the  true  poetical  enthusiasm — the 
rarest  faculty  among  players.  None  that  I  remember  pos- 
sessed even  a  portion  of  that  fine  madness  which  he  threw 
out  in  Hotspur's  famous  rant  about  glory,  or  the  transports  of 
the  Venetian  incendiary  at  the  vision  of  the  fired  city.  His 
voice  had  the  dissonance,  and  at  times  the  inspiriting  effect, 
of  the  trumpet.  His  gait  was  uncouth  and  stiff,  but  no  way 
embarrassed  by  affectation  ;  and  the  thorough-bred  gentleman 
was  uppermost  in  every  movement.  He  seized  the  moment 
of  passion  with  the  greatest  truth  ;  like  a  faithful  clock,  never 
striking  before  the  time  ;  never  anticipating,  or  leading  you  to 
anticipate.  He  was  totally  destitute  of  trick  and  artifice. 
He  seemed  come  upon  the  stage  to  do  the  poet's  message 
simply,  and  he  did  it  with  as  genuine  fidelity  as  the  nuncio: 
in  Homer  deliver  the  errands  of  the  gods.  He  let  the  pas 
sion  or  the  sentiment  do  its  own  work  without  prop  or  bol 
stering.  He  would  have  scorned  to  mountebank  it  ;  and  be 
trayed  none  of  that  cleverness  which  is  the  bane  of  serious 
acting.  For  this  reason,  his  Iago  was  the  only  endurable  one 
which  I  remember  to  have  seen.  No  spectator  from  his 
action  could  divine  more  of  his  artifice  than  Othello  was  sup- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  153 

posed  to  Jo.  His  confessions  in  soliloquy  alone  put  you  in 
possession  of  the  mystery.  There  were  no  bv-iniimations  to 
make  the  audience  fancy  their  own  discernment  so  mucb 
greater  than  that  of  the  .Moor — who  commonly  stands  like 
a  great  helpless  mark  set  up  lor  mine  ancient  and  a  quantity 
of  barren  spectators  to  shoot  their  holts  at.  The  lago  of 
Bensley  did  not  go  to  work  so  grossly.  There  was  a  trium 
pliant  tone  about  the  character,  natural  to  a  general  con- 
sciousness of  power  :  but  none  of  that  petty  vanity  whi<  h 
chuckles  and  cannot  contain  itself  upon  any  little  successful 
stroke  of  its  knavery — as  is  common  with  vour  small  villains 
and  green  probationers  in  mischief.  It  did  not  clap  or  crow 
before  its  time.  It  was  not  a  man  setting  his  wits  at  a  child, 
and  winking  all  the  while  at  other  children  who  are  mightily 
pleased  at  being  let  into  the  secret ;  but  a  consummate  villain 
entrapping  a  noble  nature  into  toils,  against  which  no  discern- 
ment was  available,  where  the  manner  was  as  fathomless  as 
the  purpose  seemed  dark,  and  without  motive.  The  part  of 
Malvolio,  in  the  Twelfth  Night,  was  performed  by  Bensley 
with  a  richness  and  a  dignity,  of  which  (to  judge  from  some 
recent  castings  of  that  character)  the  very  tradition  must  be 
worn  out  from  the  stage.  No  manager  in  those  days  would 
have  dreamed  of  giving  it  to  Mr.  Baddeley,  or  Mr.  Parsons  : 
when  Bensley  was  occasionally  absent  from  the  theatre,  John 
Keinhle  thought  it  no  derogation  to  succeed  to  the  part.  Mal- 
yolio  is  not  essentially  ludicrous.  He  becomes  comic  but  by 
accident.  He  is  cold,  austere,  repelling  ;  but  dignified,  consist- 
ent, and,  for  what  appears,  rather  of  an  overstretched  moral- 
ity. Maria  describes  him  as  a  sort  of  Puritan  ;  and  he  might 
have  worn  his  gold  chain  with  honour  in  one  of  our  old  round- 
head families,  in  the  service  of  a  Lambert  or  a  Lady  Fairfax. 
But  his  morality  and  his  manners  are  misplaced  in  Illyria. 
He  is  opposed  to  the  proper  levities  of  the  piece,  and  falls  in 
the  unequal  contest.  Still  his  pride,  or  his  gravity,  (call  it 
which  you  will,)  is  inherent,  and  native  to  the  man,  not  mock 
or  affected,  which  latter  only  are  the  fit  objects  to  excite 
laughter.  His  quality  is  at  the  best  unlovely,  but  neither  buf- 
foon nor  contemptible.  His  bearing  is  lofty,  a  little  above  Ins 
station,  but  probably  not  much  above  his  deserts.  We  see 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  been  brave,  honourable, 
accomplished.  His  careless  committal  of  the  ring  to  the 
ground  (which  he  was  commissioned  to  restore  to  Cesario) 
bespeaks  a  generosity  of  birth  and  feeling.  His  dialect  on  all 
occasions  is  that  of  a  gentleman,  and  a  man  of  education. 
We  must  not  confound  him  with  the  eternal  old,  low  steward 
of  comedy.     He  is  master  of  the  household  to  a  great   prm- 


154  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

cess ;  a  dignity  probably  conferred  upon  him  for  other  re- 
spects than  age  or  length  of  service.  Olivia,  at  the  first  indi- 
cation of  his  supposed  madness,  declares  that  she  "  would 
not  have  him  miscarry  for  half  of  her  dowry."  Does  this  look 
as  if  the  character  was  meant  to  appear  little  or  insignificant  ? 
Once,  indeed,  she  accuses  him  to  his  face — of  what  1 — of 
being  "  sick  of  self-love," — but  with  a  gentleness  and  con- 
siderateness  which  could  not  have  been,  if  she  had  not 
thought  that  this  particular  infirmity  shaded  some  virtues. 
His  rebuke  to  the  knight  and  his  sottish  revellers  is  sensible 
and  spirited  ;  and  when  we  take  into  consideration  the  unpro- 
tected condition  of  his  mistress,  and  the  strict  regard  with 
which  her  state  of  real  or  dissembled  mourning  would  draw 
the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  her  house-affairs,  Malvolio  might 
feel  the  honour  of  the  family  in  some  sort  in  his  keeping ;  as 
it  appears  not  that  Olivia  had  any  more  brothers  or  kinsmen 
to  look  to  it — for  Sir  Toby  had  dropped  all  such  nice  respects 
at  the  buttery-hatch.  That  Malvolio  was  meant  to  be  repre- 
sented as  possessing  estimable  qualities,  the  expression  of  the 
duke,  in  his  anxiety  to  have  him  reconciled,  almost  infers. 
"  Pursue  him,  and  entreat  him  to  a  peace."  Even  in  his 
abused  state  of  chains  and  darkness,  a  sort  of  greatness 
seems  never  to  desert  him.  He  argues  highly  and  well  with 
the  supposed  Sir  Topas,  and  philosophizes  gallantly  upon  his 
straw.*  There  must  have  been  some  shadow  of  worth  about 
the  man  ;  he  must  have  been  something  more  than  a  mere 
vapour — a  thing  of  straw,  or  Jack  in  office — before  Fabian 
and  Maria  could  have  ventured  sending  him  upon  a  courting 
errand  to  Olivia.  There  was  some  consonancy  (as  he  would 
say)  in  the  undertaking,  or  the  jest  would  have  been  too  bold 
even  for  that  house  of  misrule. 

Bensley,  accordingly,  threw  over  the  part  an  air  of  Spanish 
loftiness.  He  looked,  spake,  and  moved  like  an  old  Castilian. 
He  was  starch,  spruce,  opinionated,  but  his  superstructure  of 
pride  seemed  bottomed  upon  a  sense  of  worth.  There  was 
something  in  it  beyond  the  coxcomb.  It  was  big  and  swel- 
ling, but  you  could  not  be  sure  that  it  was  hollow.  You 
might  wish  to  see  it  taken  down,  but  you  felt  that  it  was  upon 
an  elevation.  He  was  magnificent  from  the  outset ;  but  when 
the  decent  sobrieties  of  the  character  began  to  give  way,  and 
the  poison  of  self-love,  in  his  conceit  of  the  countess's  affec- 
tion, gradually  to  work,  you  would  have  thought  that  the  hero 

*   Clown.     What  is  the  opinion  of  Pylliapor.is  concerning  wild  fowl-' 

Mai.     That  the  soul  of  our  grandah 'lit  haply  inhabit  a  I'ird. 

Clown.     What  tliiukrst  tlion  o(  his  opinion  ' 

Mai     I  think  riohly  of  the  soul,  and  no  way  approve  "I  Ins  opinion. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  155 

of  La  Mancha  in  person  stood  before  you.  How  he  went 
smiling  to  himself!  with  what  ineffable  careh  ->mh  at  would 
he  twirl  his  gold  chain  !  what  ;i  dream  it  was!  you  were  in- 
fected with  the  illusion,  and  did  not  wish  that  it  should  be 
removed  !  vou  had  do  room  for  laughter!  if  an  unseasonable 
reflection  of  morality  obtruded  itself,  it  was  a  deep  sense  of 
the  pitiable  infirmity  of  man's  nature,  that  can  lav  him  open 
to  such  phrensies  :  but,  in  truth,  you  rather  admired  than  pitied 
the  lunacv  while  it  lasted — you  felt  that  an  hour  of  such  mis- 
take was  worth  an  age  with  the  eyes  open.  Who  would  not 
wish  to  live  but  for  a  day  in  the  conceit  of  such  a  ladv's  love 
as  Olivia  ?  Why,  the  duke  would  have  given  his  principali- 
ty but  for  a  quarter  of  a  minute,  sleeping  or  waking,  to  have 
been  so  deluded.  The  man  seemed  to  tread  upon  air,  to  taste 
manna,  to  walk  with  his  head  in  the  clouds,. to  mate  Hype- 
rion. Oh !  shake  not  the  castles  of  his  pride — endure  yet 
for  a  season,  bright  moments  of  confidence — "  stand  still,  ye 
watchers  of  the  element,13  that  Mai  vol  io  may  be  still  in  fancy 
fair  Olivia's  lord — but  fate  and  retribution  say  no — I  hear  the 
mischievous  titter  of  Maria — the  witty  taunts  of  Sir  Toby — 
the  still  more  insupportable  triumph  of  the  foolish  knight — the 
counterfeit  Sir  Tepas  is  unmasked,  and  "thus  the  whirligig 
of  time,"  as  the  true  clown  hath  it,  "  brings  in  his  revenges." 
I  confess  that  I  never  saw  the  catastrophe  of  this  character, 
while  Bensley  played  it,  without  a  kind  of  tragic  interest. 
There  was  good  foolerv  too.  Few  now  remember  Dodd. 
What  an  Aguecheek  the  stage  lost  in  him  !  Lovegrove,  who 
came  nearest  to  the  old  actors,  revived  the  character  some 
few  seasons  ago,  and  made  it  sufficiently  grotesque,  but  Dodd 
was  it,  as  it  came  out  of  nature's  hands.  It  might  be  said  to 
remain  in  puris  luititrahbus.  In  expressing  slowness  of  ap- 
prehension this  actor  surpassed  all  others.  You  could  see 
the  first  dawn  of  an  idea  stealing  slowly  orer  his  counte- 
nance, climbing  up  by  little  and  little,  with  a  painful  process, 
till  it  cleared  up  at  last  to  the  fulness  of  a  twilight  concep- 
tion— its  highest  meridian.  He  seemed  to  keep  back  his  in- 
tellect, as  some  have  had  the  power  to  retard  their  pulsation. 
The  balloon  takes  less  time  in  filling,  than  it  took  to  cover 
the  expansion  of  his  broad  moony  face  over  all  its  quarters 
with  expression.  A  glimmer  of  understanding  would  appear 
in  a  corner  of  his  eye,  and  for  lack  of  fuel  go  out  again.  A 
part  of  his  forehead  would  catch  a  little  intelligence,  and  be 
a  long  time  in  communicating  it  to  the  remainder. 

1  am  ill  at  dates,  but  I  think  it  is  now  better  than  live-and- 
twentv  years  ago  that,  walking  in  the  gardens  of  Gray's  Inn 
— they  were  then  far  liner  than  thev  are  now — the  accursed 


156  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

Verulam  Buildings  had  not  encroached  upon  all  the  east  side 
of  them,  cutting  out  delicate  green  crankles,  and  shouldering 
away  one  of  two  of  the  stately  alcoves  of  the  terrace — the 
surviver  stands  gaping  and  relationless   as  if  it  remembered 
its  brother — they  are  still  the  best  gardens  of  any  of  the  Inns 
of  Court,  my  beloved  Temple  not  forgotten — have  the  gravest 
character,  their  aspect    being  altogether  reverend   and  law- 
breathing — Bacon  has  left  the  impress  of  his  foot  upon  their 
gravel-walks — taking  my  afternoon  solace  on  a  summer  day 
upon  the  aforesaid  terrace,  a  comely  sad  personage  came  to- 
wards me,  whom,  from  his  grave  air  and  deportment,  I  judged 
to  be  one  of  the  old  Benchers  of  the  Inn.     He  had  a  serious, 
thoughtful  forehead,  and  seemed  to  be  in  meditations  of  mor- 
tality.    As  I  have  an  instinctive  awe  of  old  Benchers,  I  was 
passing  him  with  that  sort  of  subindicative  token  of  respect 
which  one  is  apt  to  demonstrate  towards  a  venerable  stranger, 
and  which  rather  denotes  an  inclination  to  greet  him  than  any 
positive  motion  of  the  body  to  that  effect — a  species  of  hu- 
mility and  will-worship  which  I  observe,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
rather  puzzles  than  pleases  the  person  it  is  offered  to — when 
the  face  turning  full  upon  me  strangely  identified  itself  with 
that  of  Dodd.     Upon  close  inspection   I  was  not  mistaken. 
But  could  this  sad  thoughtful  countenance  be  the  same  vacant 
face  of  folly  which  I  had  hailed  so  often  under  circumstances 
of  gayety  ;  which  I  had  never  seen  without  a  smile,  or  recog- 
nised but  as  the  usher  of  mirth  ;  that  looked  out  so  formally 
flat  in   Foppington,  so  frothily  pert  in   Tattle,  so  impotently 
busy  in  Backbite  ;  so  blankly  divested  of  all  meaning,  or  res- 
olutely expressive  of  none,  in  Acres,  in  Fribble,  and  a  thou- 
sand agreeable  impertinences?     Was  this  the  face — full   }f 
thought  and  carefulness — that  had  so  often  divested  itself  at 
will  of  every  trace  of  either  to  give  me  diverson,  to  clear  my 
cloudy  face  for  two  or  three  hours  at  least  of  its  furrows  ? 
Was  this  the  face — manly,  sober,  intelligent — which  I  had  so 
often  despised,  made  mocks  at,  made    merry  with?     The  re- 
membrance of  the  freedoms  which  I  had  taken   with  it  came 
updo  me  with  a  reproach  of  insult.      I  could  have   asked  it 
pardon.     I  thought  it  looked  upon  me  with  a  sense  of  injury. 
There  is  something  strange  as  well  as  sad  in  seeing  actors — 
your  pleasant  fellows  particularly — subjected  to  and  suffering 
the  common  lot— their  fortunes,  their  casualties,  their  deaths, 
seem  to  belong  to  the  scene,  their  actions  to  be   amenable  to 
poetic  justice  only.      We  can  hardly  connect  them  with  more 
awful    responsibilities.      The  death  <>f  this   line   actor  took 
place  shortly  after  this  meeting,     lie   had   quitted  the  stage 
koine  months  ;  and,  as  1  learned  afterward,  had  been  in  the 


ESSAVS    OF    ElAX.  157 

habit  of  resorting  daily  to  these  gardens  almost  to  the  day  of 
Ids  decease.  In  these  serious  walks  probably  he  was  divest- 
ing himself  of  many  scenic  and  some  reaj  vanities — weaning 
himself  from  the  frivolities  <>f  the  lesser  and  the  greater  ili>  - 
aire — doing  gentle  penance  for  a  life  of  no  very  reprehensi- 
ble" fooleries — takin»  oil'  by  degrees  the  buffoon  mask  which 
he  might  feel  he  had  worn  too  long — and  rehearsing  for  a  more 
soli  inn  cast  of  part.  Dying,  he  -'put  on  the  weeds  of  Dom- 
inic."* 

If  few  can  remember  Dodd,  many  yet  living  will  not  easily 
forgct  the  pleasant  creature;  who  in  those  days  enacted  the 
part  of  the  clown  to  Dodd't)  Sir  Andrew.  Richard,  or  rather 
Dicky  Snett — lor  so  in  his  lifetime  he  delighted  to  be  called, 
and  time  hath  ratified  the  appellation — lieth  buried  on  the 
north  side  of  the  cemetery  of  Holy  Paul,  to  whose  service 
his  nonage  and  tender  years  were  dedicated.  There  are  who 
do  yet  remember  him  at  that  period — las  pipe  clear  and  har- 
monious. He  Would  often  speak  of  his  chorister  days,  when 
he  was  "cherub  Dickv." 

What  clipped  his  wings,  or  made  it  expedient,  that  he, 
should  exchange  the  holy  for  the  profane  state  ;  whether  he 
had  lost  his  good  voice  (his  best  recommendation  to  that  of- 
fice), like  Sir  John,  "  with  hallooing  and  singing  of  anthems  ;" 
or  whether  he  was  adjudged  to  lack  something,  even  in  those 
early  years,  of  the  gravity  indispensable  to  an  occupatiou 
which  professeth  to  "commerce  with  the  skies" — 1  could 
never  rightly  learn  ;  but  we  find  him,  after  tin;  probation  of  a 
twelvemonth  or  so,  reverting  to  a  secular  condition,  and  be- 
come one  of  us. 

I  think  he  was  not  altogether  of  that  timber  out  of  which 
cathedral-seats  and  sounding-boards  are  hewed.  But  if  a 
glad  heart — kind,  and  therefore  glad — be  any  part  of  sanctity, 
then  might  the  robe  of  .Motley,  with  which  he  invested  him- 
self with  so  much  humility  after  his  deprivation,  and  which 
he  wore  so  long  with  so  much  blameless  satisfaction  to  him- 
self and  to  the  public,  be  accepted  for  a  surplice — his  white 
Stole,  and  albe. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  secularization  was  an  encasement 


*  Dodd  was  a  man  of  reading,  and  left  at  his  death  a  choice  collection  of 
old  Knslish  literature.  I  should  judge  him  to  have-bees'  a  man  of  wK:  I  know 
one  iaataace  Of  an  impromptu  whiph  no  length  of  study  could  have  Letteoed. 
My  merry  friend,  Jem  White,  had  seen  him  one  evening  in  Aguecheek,  and 
recognising  Dodd  the  next  day  in  Fleet-street",  was  irresistibly  impelled  to 
take  ofl  bis  hat  and  salute  him  as  the  identical  knight  of  the  preceding  evolv- 
ing with  a  "  Save  you.  Sir  Andf&v.1'  Dodd,  not  at  all  disconcerted  at  tins 
unusual  address  from  a  stranger,  with  a  courteous,  half-rebuking  wave  of  the 
hand,  put  him  oil  with  an  "  Awtf) .  fool." 

14 


158  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

upon  the  boards  of  Old  Drury,  at  which  theatre  he  commenced, 
as  I  have  been  told,  with  adopting  the  maimer  of  Parsons  in 
old  men's  characters.  At  the  period  in  which  most  of  us 
knew  him,  he  was  no  more  an  imitator  than  he  was  in  any 
true  sense  himself  imitable. 

He  was  the  Robin  Good-Fellow  of  the  stage.  He  came 
in  to  trouble  all  things  with  a  welcome  perplexity,  himself  no 
whit  troubled  for  the  matter.  He  was  known,  like  Puck,  by 
his  note — Ha — ha — ha  ! — sometimes  deepening  to  Ho — ho — • 
ho  !  with  an  irresistible  accession,  derived,  perhaps,  remotely 
from  his  ecclesiastical  education,  foreign  to  his  prototype  of 
—  Oh  la!  Thousands  of  hearts  yet  respond  to  the  chuckling 
Oh  la  !  of  Dicky  Suett,  brought  back  to  their  remembrance 
by  the  faithful  transcript  of  his  friend  Mathews'  mimicry. 
The  "  force  of  nature  could  no  further  go."  He  drolled  upon 
the  stock  of  these  two  syllables  richer  than  the  cuckoo. 

Care,  that  troubles  all  the  world,  was  forgotten  in  his  com- 
position. Had  he  had  but  two  grains  (nay,  half  a  grain)  of  it,  he 
could  never  have  supported  himself  upon  those  two  spiders' 
strings,  which  served  him  (in  the  latter  part  of  his  unmixed 
existence)  as  legs.  A  doubt  or  a  scruple  must  have  made  him 
totter,  a  sigh  have  puffed  him  down  ;  the  weight  of  a  frown 
had  staggered  him,  a  wrinkle  made  him  lose  his  balance. 
But  on  he  went,  scrambling  upon  those  airy  stilts  of  his,  with 
Robin  Good-Fellow,  "  through  brake,  through  brier,"  reckless 
of  a  scratched  face  or  a  torn  doublet. 

Shakspeare  foresaw  him  when  he  framed  his  fools  and  jest- 
ers. They  have  all  the  true  Suett  stamp,  a  loose  and  sham- 
bling gait,  a  slippery  tongue,  this  last,  the  ready  midwife  to  a 
without-pain-delivered  jest  ;  in  words,  light  as  air,  venting 
truths  deep  as  the  centre  ;  with  idlest  rhymes  tagging  conceit 
when  busiest,  singing  with  Lear  in  the  tempest,  or  Sir  Toby 
at  the  buttery-hatch. 

Jack  Bannister  and  he  had  the  fortune  to  be  more  of  per- 
sonal favourites  with  the  town  than  any  actors  before  or  after. 
The  difference,  I  take  it,  was  this  :  Jack  was  more  beloved 
for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  moral  pretensions.  Dicky  was 
more  liked  for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  no  pretensions  at  all. 
Your  whole  conscience  stirred  with  Bannister's  performance 
of  Walter  in  the  Children  in  the  Wood — but  Dicky  seemed 
like  a  thing,  as  Shakspeare  says  of  love,  too  young  to  know 
what  conscience  is.  He  put  us  into  Vesta's  days.  Evil  fled 
before  him — not  as  from  Jack,  as  from  an  antagonist — but 
because  it  could  not  touch  him,  any  more  than  a  cannon-ball 
a  fly.  He  was  delivered  from  the  burden  of  that  death  ;  and, 
when  Death  came  himself,  not  in  metaphor,  to  fetch  Dicky, 


ESSAYS    OF    EI.IA.  159 

it  is  recorded  of  him  by  Robert  Palmer,  who  kindly  watched 
his  exit,  that  he  received  the  last  stroke,  neither"  varying  his 
accustomed  tranquillity  nor  tune,  with  the  simple  exclamation, 
worthy  to  have  been  recorded  in  his  epitaph — Ok!  la!  Ok 
la!  Bobby! 

The  elder  Palmer  (of  stage-treading  celebrity)  commonly 

played  Sir  Toby  in  those  days  ;  hut  there  is  a  solidity  of  wit 
in  the  jests  of  that  half-Falstalf  which  he  did  not  quite  fill 
out.  He  was  as  much  too  showy  as  Moodv  (who  sometimes 
took  the  part)  was  dry  and  sottish.  In  sock  or  buskin  there 
was  an  air  of  swaggering  gentility  about  Jack  Palmer.  He 
was  a  genth  inan  with  a  slight  ^illusion  of  tkc  footman.  His 
brother  Bob,  (of  recenter  memory,)  who  was  his  shadow  in 
<  \ -en-thing  while  he  lived,  and  dwindled  into  less  than  a 
shadow  afterward — was  a  gentleman  with  a  little  stronger 
infusion  of  the  latter  ingredient';  that  was  all.  It  is  amazing 
how  a  little  of  the  more  or  less  makes  a  difference  in  these 
things.  When  you  saw  Hobby  m  the  duke's  servant,*  you 
said,  What  a  pity  such  a  pretty  fellow  was  only  a  servant. 
When  you  saw  Jack  figuring  in  Captain  Absolute,  you  thought 
vou  could  trace  his  promotion  to  some  lady  of  qualify  who 
fancied  the  handsome  fellow  in  his  topknot,  and  had  bought 
him  a  commission.  Therefore  Jack  in  Dick  Amlet  was  in- 
superable. 

Jack  had  two  voices — both  plausible,  hypocritical,  and  in- 
sinuating ;  but  his  secondary  or  supplemental  voice  still  more 
decisively  histrionic  than  his  common  one.  It  was  reserved 
for  the  spectator ;  and  the  dramatis  persona  were  supposed  to 
know  nothing  at  all  about  it.  The  lies  of  Young  Wilding, 
and  the  sentiments  in  Joseph  Surface,  were  thus  marked  out 
in  a  sort  of  italics  to  the  audience.  This  secret  correspond- 
ence with  the  company  before  the  curtain  (which  is  the  bane 
and  death  of  tragedy)  has  an  extremely  happy  effect  in  some 
kinds  of  comedy,  in  the  more  highly  artificial  comedy  of 
Congreve  or  of  Sheridan  especially,  where  the  absolute  sense 
of  reality  (so  indispensable  to  scenes  of  interest)  is  not  re- 
quired, Or  would  rather  interfere  to  diminish  your  pleasure. 
The  fact  is,  you  do  not  believe  in  such  characters  as  Surface 
— the  villain  of  artificial  comedy — even  while  you  read  or 
see  them.  If  you  did,  they  would  shock  and  not  divert  you. 
Winn  Hen,  in  Love  for  Love,  returns  from  sea,  the  following 
exquisite  dialogue  occurs  at  his  first  meeting  with  his  lather:  — 

•  Sn  Sampson.  Thon  hast  been  many  a  weary  league,  Ben,  aince  I  saw  thro. 
•'  Bern   F.v,  ey,  been  !     Been  far  enough,  an'  that  be  all.     Well,  father,  and 

how  do  all  at  home  !  how  does  brother  Dick,  ami  brother  Val '. 

*   High  Lite  Below  Stairs. 


160  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

"  Sir  Sampson.  Dick  !  body  o'  me,  Dick  has  been  dead  these  two  years.  I 
writ  you.  word  when  you  were  at  Leghorn. 

"  Ben.  Mess,  that's  true;  marry,  I  had  forgot.  Dick's  dead,  as  you  say — 
Well,  and  how  ?    I  have  a  many  questions  to  ask  you" — 

Here  is  an  instance  of  insensibility  which  in  real  life  would 
be  revolting,  or  rather  in  real  life  could  not  have  coexisted 
with  the  warm-hearted  temperament  of  the  character.  But 
when  you  read  it  in  the  spirit  with  which  such  playful  selec- 
tions and  specious  combinations  rather  than  strict  metaphrases 
of  nature  should  be  taken,  or  when  you  saw  Bannister  play 
it,  it  neither  did  nor  does  wound  the  moral  sense  at  all.  Far 
what  is  Ben — the  pleasant  sailor  which  Bannister  gives  us — 
but  a  piece  of  satire — a  creation  of  Congreve's  fancy — a 
dreamy  combination  of  all  the  accidents  of  a  sailor's  charac- 
ter— his  contempt  of  money — his  credulity  to  women — with 
that  necessary  estrangement  from  home  which  it  is  just  with- 
in the  verge  of  credibility  to  suppose  might  produce  such  a 
hallucination  as  is  here  described.  We  never  think  the  worse 
of  Ben  for  it,  or  feel  it  as  a  stain  upon  his  character.  But 
when  an  actor  comes,  and  instead  of  the  delightful  phantom 
— the  creature  dear  to  half-belief — which  Bannister  exhibited 
■ — displays  before  our  eyes  a  downright  concretion  of  a  Wrap- 
ping sailor — a  jolly,  warm-hearted  Jack  Tar — and  nothing  else 
• — when,  instead  of  investing  it  with  a  delicious  confusedness 
of  the  head,  and  a  veering,  undirected  goodness  of  purpose — 
he  gives  to  it  a  downright  daylight  understanding,  and  a  full 
consciousness  of  its  actions  :  thrusting  forward  the  sensibili- 
ties of  the  character  with  a  pretence  as  if  it  stood  upon  noth- 
ing else,  and  was  to  be  judged  by  them  alone — we  feel  the 
discord  of  the  thing  ;  the  scene  is  disturbed ;  a  real  man  has 
got  in  among  the  dramatis  persona,  and  puts  them  out.  We 
want  the  sailor  turned  out.  We  feel  that  his  true  place  is  not 
behind  the  curtain,  but  in  the  first  or  second  gallery. 


ON  THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST 
CENTURY. 

The  artificial  comedy,  or  comedy  of  manners,  is  quite  ex- 
tinct on  our  stage.  Congrcve  and  Farquhar  show  their  heads 
once  in  seven  years  only,  to  be  exploded  and  put  down  in- 
stantly. The  times  cannot  bear  them.  Is  it  for  a  few  wild 
speeches,  an  occasional  license  of  dialogue?     I  think  not  al- 


ESSAYS     OF     LLIA.  1  (j  1 

together.  The  business  of  their  dramatic  characters  will  nut 
stand  the  mural  test.  \\  '■•  scnu  everything  op  to  tliat.  Idle 
gallantly  m  a  fiction,  a  dream,  the  passing  pageant  of  an 
evening,  startles  us  in  the  same  way  as  the  alarming  indica- 
tions of  profligacy  in  a  son  0t  ward  in  real  life  should  startle 
a  parent  or  guardian.  We  have  no  such  middle  emotions  as 
dramatic  interests  left.  We  see  a  stage  libertine  playing  his 
loose  pranks  of  two  hours'  duration,  and  of  no  alter  conse- 
quence, with  the  severe  eyes  which  inspect  real  vices,  with 
their  bearings  upon  two  worlds.  We  are  spectators  to  a 
plot  or  intrigue,  (not  reducible  in  life  to  the  point  of  strict  mo- 
rality,) and  take  it  all  for  truth.  We  .substitute  a  real  for  a 
dramatic  person,  and  judge  him  accordingly.  We  try  him  in 
our  courts,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal  to  the  dramatis  per-' 
,  his  peers.  "We  have  been  spoiled  with — not  sentimen- 
tal comedy — but  a  tyrant  far  more  pernicious  to  our  pleasures 
which  has  succeeded  to  it,  the  exclusive  and  all-devouring 
drama  of  common  life  ;  where  the  moral  point  is  everything  ; 
where,  instead  of  the  fictitious,  half-believed  personages  of  the 
stage,  (the  phantoms  of  old  comedy,)  we  recognise  ourselves, 
our  brothers,  aunts,  kinsfolk,  allies,  patrons,  enemies — the 
same  as  in  life — with  an  interest  in  what  is  going  on  so  hearty 
and  substantial,  that  we  cannot  afford  our  moral  judgment,  in 
its  deepest  and  most  vital  results,  to  compromise  or  slumber 
for  a  moment.  What  is  there  transacting,  by  no  modification 
is  made  to  affect  us  in  any  other  manner  than  the  same  events 
or  characters  would  do  in  our  relationships  of  life.  W  e 
carry  our  fireside  concerns  to  the  theatre  with  us.  We  do 
not  go  thither,  like  our  ancestors,  to  escape  from  the  pressure 
of  reality,  so  much  as  to  confirm  our  experience  of  it  ;  to 
make  assurance  double,  and  take  a  bond  of  fate.  We  must 
live  our  toilsome  lives  twice  over,  as  it  was  the  mournful 
privilege  of  Ulysses  to  descend  twice  to  the  shades.  All 
that  neutral  ground  of  character  winch  stood  between  vice 
and  virtue,  or  which,  in  fact,  was  indifferent  to  neither,  where 
neither  properly  was  called  in  question  ;  that  happy  breath- 
iqg-place  from  the  burden  of  a  perpetual  moral  questioning — 
the  sanctuary  and  quiet  Alsatia  of  hunted  casuistry — is  bro- 
ken up  and  disfranchised,  as  injurious  to  the  interests  of  so- 
ciety. The  privileges  erf  the  place  are  taken  away  by  law. 
We  dare  not  dally  with  images  or  names  of  wrong.  We 
bark  like  foolish  dogs  at  shadows.  We  dread  infection  from 
the  -scenic  representations  of  disorder,  and  fear  a  painted 
pustule.  In  our  anxiety  that  our  morality  should  not  take  cold, 
we  wrap  it  up  in  a  great  blanket  surlout  of  precaution  against 
the  breeze  and  sunshine. 
14* 


162  ESSAYS    OF   ELIA. 

I  confess  for  myself  that  (with  no  great  delinquencies  to 
answer  for)  I  am  glad  for  a  season  to  take  an  airing  beyond  the 
diocess  of  the  strict  conscience — not  to  live  always  in  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  law-courts — but  now  and  then,  for  a  dream- 
while  or  so,  to  imagine  a  world  with  no  meddling  restrictions 
— to  get  into  recesses  whither  the  hunter  cannot  follow  me — 

"  Secret  shades 
Of  woody  Ida's  inmost  grove, 
While  yet  there  was  no  fear  of  Jove" — 

I  come  back  to  my  cage  and  my  restraint  the  fresher  and 
more  healthy  for  it.  I  wear  my  shackles  more  contentedly  for 
having  respired  the  breath  of  an  imaginary  freedom.  I  do 
not  know  how  it  is  with  others,  but  I  feel  the  better  always 
for  the  perusal  of  one  of  Congreve's — nay,  why  should  I  not 
add  even  of  Wycherley's  comedies.  I  am  the  gayer  at  least 
for  it ;  and  I  could  never  connect  those  sports  of  a  witty 
fancy  in  any  shape  with  any  result  to  be  drawn  from  them  to 
imitation  in  real  life.  They  are  a  world  of  themselves  al- 
most as  much  as  fairy  land.  Take  one  of  their  characters, 
male  or  female,  (with  few  exceptions  they  are  alike,)  and 
place  it  n  a  modern  play,  and  my  virtuous  indignation  shall 
rise  against  the  profligate  wretch  as  warmly  as  the  Catos  of 
the  pit  could  desire  ;  because  in  a  modern  play  I  am  to  judge 
of  the  right  and  the  wrong.  The  standard  of  police  is  the 
measure  of  political  justice.  The  atmosphere  will  blight  it, 
it  cannot  live  here.  It  has  got  into  a  moral  world,  where  it 
has  no  business,  from  which  it  must  needs  fall  headlong  :  as 
dizzy,  and  incapable  of  making  a  stand,  as  a  Swedenborgian 
bad  spirit  that  has  wandered  unawares  into  the  sphere  of  one 
of  his  good  men,  or  angels.  But  in  its  own  world  do  we 
feel  the  creature  is  so  very  bad  ?  The  Fainalls  and  the  Mi- 
rabels, the  Dorimants  and  the  Lady  Touchwoods,  in  their  own 
sphere,  do  not  offend  my  moral  sense  ;  in  fact,  they  do  not 
appeal  to  it  at  all.  They  seem  engaged  in  their  proper  ele- 
ment. They  break  through  no  laws,  or  conscientious  re- 
straints. They  know  of  none.  They  have  got  out  of  Chris- 
tendom into  the  land — what  shall  I  call  it  ? — of  cuckoldry — 
the  Utopia  of  gallantry,  where  pleasure  is  duty,  and  the  man- 
ners perfect  freedom.  It  is  altogether  a  speculative  scene  of 
things,  which  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  world  that  is 
No  good  person  can  be  justly  offended  as  a  spectator,  because 
no  good  person  suffers  on  the  stage.  Judged  morally,  every 
character  in  these  plays — the  few  exceptions  are  only  mistakes 
— is  alike  essentially  vain  and  worthless.  The  great  art  of 
Congreve  is  especially  shown  in  this,  that  he  has  entirely  ex- 
cluded from  his  scenes — some  little  generosities  in  the  part 


Uss.VYS    OF    ELIA.  103 

of  Angelica  perhaps  ^excepted  — not  only  anything  like  a 
faultless  character,  but  any  pretensions  to  goodness  or  good 
feelings  whatsoever.  Whether  he  did  this  designedly  or 
instinctively,  the  effect  is  as  happy  as  the  design  (if  design) 
was  bold.  I  used  to  wonder  at  the  strange  power  which 
his  Way  of  the  World  in  particular  possesses  of  interesting 
you  all  along  in  the  pursuit  of  characters,  for  whom  you  ab- 
solutely care  nothing — for  you  neither  hate  nor  love  his 
personages — and  I  think  it  is  owing  to  this  very  indiffer- 
ence for  any,  that  you  endure  the  whole,  lie  has  spread  a 
privation  of  moral  light,  I  will  call  it,  rather  than  by  the  ugly 
name  of  palpable  darkness,  over  his  creations;  and  his  shad- 
ows Hit  before  you  without  distinction  or  preference.  Had 
he  introduced  a  good  character,  a  single  gush  of  moral  feel- 
ing, a  revulsion  of  the  judgment  to  actual  life  and  actual  du- 
ties, the  impertinent  Goshen  would  have  only  lighted  to  the 
discovery  of  deformities,  which  now  are  none,  because  we 
think  them  none. 

Translated  into  real  life,  the  characters  of  his  and  his 
friend  Wycherley's  dramas  are  profligates  and  strumpets — 
the  business  of  their  brief  existence,  the  undivided  pursuit  of 
lawless  gallantry.  No  other  spring  of  action  or  possible 
motive  of  conduct  is  recognised ;  principles  which,  universal- 
ly acted  upon,  must  reduce  this  frame  of  things  to  a  chaos. 
But  we  do  them  wrong  in  so  translating  them.  No  such  ef- 
fects are  produced  in  their  world.  When  we  are  among 
them  we  are  among  a  chaotic  people.  We  are  uot  to  judge 
them  by  our  usages.  No  reverend  institutions  are  insulted 
by  their  proceedings — for  they  have  none  among  them.  No 
peace  of  families  is  violated — for  no  family  ties  exist  among 
them.  No  purity  of  the  marriage-bed  is  stained  — for  none  is 
supposed  to  have  a  being.  No  deep  affections  are  disquieted 
— DO  holv  wedlock  bands  are  snapped  asunder — for  affection's 
depth  and  wedded  faith  are  not  of  the  growth  of  that  soil. 
There  is  neither  right  nor  wrong — gratitude  or  its  opposite — 
claim  or  duty — paternity  or  sonship.  Of  what  consequence 
is  it  to  virtue,  or  how  is  she  at  all  concerned  about  it,  whether 
Sir  Simon  or  Dapperwit  steal  away  Miss  Martha  ;  or  who  is 
the  lather  of  Lord  Froth's  or  Sir  Paul  Pliant's  children  ? 

The  whole  is  a  passing  pageant,  win  re  we  should  sit  as 
unconcerned  at  the  issues,  for  life  or  death,  as  at  a  battle  of  the 
frogs  and  mice.  But,  like  Don  Quixote,  we  take  part  against 
the  puppets,  and  quite  as  impertinently.  We  dare  not  con- 
template an  Atlantis,  a  scheme,  out  of  which  our  COXCOmbical 
moral  sense  is  for  a  little  transitory  case  excluded.  We 
have  not  the   courage  to  imagine  a  state  of  things  for  which 


1  G  4  ESSAYS    OF    JELIA. 

there  is  neither  reward  nor  punishment.  We  cling  to  the 
painful  necessities  of  shame  and  blame.  We  would  endict 
our  very  dreams. 

Amid  the  mortifying  circumstances  attendant  upon  growing 
old,  it  is  something  to  have  seen  the  School  for  Scandal  in  its 
glory.  This  comedy  grew  out  of  Congreve  and  Wycherley, 
but  gathered  some  allays  of  the  sentimental  comedy  which 
followed  theirs.  It  is  impossible  that  it  should  be  now  acted, 
though  it  continues,  at  long  intervals,  to  be  announced  in  the 
bills.  Its  hero,  when  Palmer  played  it  at  least,  was  Joseph 
Surface.  When  I  remember  the  gay  boldness,  the  graceful, 
solemn  plausibility,  the  measured  step,  the  insinuating  voice 
— to  express  it  in  a  word — the  downright  acted  villany  of  the 
part,  so  different  from  the  pressure  of  conscious  actual  wick- 
edness— the  hypocritical  assumption  of  hypocrisy,  which  made 
Jack  so  deservedly  a  favourite  in  that  character,  I  must  needs 
conclude  the  present  generation  of  play-goers  more  virtuous 
than  myself,  or  more  dense.  I  freely  confess  that  he  divided 
the  palm  with  me  with  his  better  brother  ;  that,  in  fact,  I  liked 
him  quite  as  well.  Not  but  there  are  passages — like  that, 
for  instance,  where  Joseph  is  made  to  refuse  a  pittance  to  a 
poor  relation — incongruities  which  Sheridan  was  forced  upon 
by  the  attempt  to  join  the  artificial  with  the  sentimental  com- 
edy, either  of  which  must  destroy  the  other — but  over  these 
obstructions  Jack's  manner  floated  him  so  lightly,  that  a  re- 
fusal from  him  no  more  shocked  you  than  the  easy  compli- 
ance of  Charles  gave  you  in  reality  any  pleasure :  you  got 
over  the  paltry  question  as  quickly  as  you  could,  to  get  back 
into  the  regions  of  pure  comedy,  where  no  cold  moral  reigns. 
The  highly  artificial  manners  of  Palmer  in  this  character 
counteracted  every  disagreeable  impression  which  you  might 
have  received  from  the  contrast,  supposing  them  real,  between 
the  two  brothers.  You  did  not  believe  in  Joseph  with  the 
same  faith  with  which  you  believed  in  Charles.  The  latter 
was  a  pleasant  reality,  the  former  a  no  less  pleasant  poetical 
foil  to  it.  The  comedy,  1  have  said,  is  incongruous,  a  mix- 
ture of  Congreve  with  sentimental  incompatibilities:  the 
gayety,  upon  the  whole,  is  buoyant ;  but  it  required  the  con- 
summate art  of  Palmer  to  reconcile  the  discordant  elements. 

A  player  with  Jack's  talents,  if  we  had  one  now,  would  not 
dare  to  do  the  part  in  the  same  manner.  He  would  instinct- 
ively avoid  every  turn  which  might  tend  to  unrealize,  and 
so  to  make  the  character  fascinating.  He  must  take  his  cue 
from  his  spectators,  who  would  expect  a  bad  man  and  a  good 
man  as  rigidly  opposed  to  each  other  as  the  deathbeds  of 
those  geniuses  arc  contrasted  in  the  prints,  which,  I  am  sorry 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  ]  |j5 

to  say,  have  disappeared  from  the  windows  of  my  old  friend 
Carrington  Bowles,  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  memory — (an 

exhibition  as  venerable  aa  the  adjacent  cathedral,  and  almost 
coeval)  ol  the  bad  and  good  man  al  the  hoar  of  death  ;  where 
the  ghastly  apprehensions  of  the  former— and  truly  the  grim 
phantom,  with  his  reality  of  a  toasting-fork,  is  not  to  lie  de- 
spised— so  finely  contrast  v  ith  the  meek  complacent  kissing  of 
the  rod — taking  it  in  like  honey  and  nutter — with  which  the 
latter  submits  to  the  scythe  of  the  gentle  bleeder,  Time,  who 
wields  his  lancet  with  the  apprehensive  finger  of  a  popular 
yonng  ladies'  surgeon.  What  flesh,  like  loving  grass,  would  not 
covet  to  meet  half  way  the  stroke  of  such  a  delicate  mower? 
John  Palmer  was  twice  an  actor  in  this  exquisite  part.  He 
was  playing  to  you  all  the  while  that  he  was  playing  upon 
Sir  Peter  and  his  lady.  You  had  the  fust  intimation  of  a 
sentiment  before  it  was  on  his  lips.  His  altered  voice  was 
meant  to  you,  and  you  were  to  suppose  that  his  fictitious  co- 
ilutterers  on  the  stage  perceived  nothing  at  all  of  it.  What 
was  it  to  you  if  that  half-reality,  the  husband,  was  over- 
reached by  the  puppetry — or  the  thin  thing  (Lady  Teazle's 
reputation)  was  persuaded  it  was  dying  of  a  plethory  I  The 
fortunes  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  were  not  concerned  in  it. 
Poor  Jack  has  passed  from  the  stage  in  good  time,  that  he 
did  not  live  to'thrs  our  age  of  seriousness.  The  pleasant  old 
Teazle  King,  too,  is  gone  in  good  time.  His  manner  would 
scarce  have  passed  current  in  our  day.  Wre  must  love  or 
hate — acquit  or  condemn — censure  or  pity — exert  our  detest- 
able coxcombry  of  moral  judgment  upon  everything.  Joseph 
Surface,  to  go  down  now,  must  be  a  downright  revolting  vil- 
lain— no  compromise — his  first  appearance  must  shock  and 
give  horror — his  specious  plausibilities,  which  the  pleasu- 
rable faculties  of  our  fathers  welcomed  with  such  hearlv  greet- 
ings, knowing  that  no  harm  (dramatic  harm  even)  could  come, 
or  was  meant  to  come  of  them,  must  inspire  a  cold  and  kill- 
ing aversion.  Charles  (the  real  canting  person  of  the  scene 
— for  the  hypocrisy  of  Joseph  has  its  ulterior  legitimate  ends, 
but  his  brother's  professions  of  a  good  heart  centre  in  down- 
right self-satisfaction)  must  be  loved  and  Joseph  hated.  To 
balance  one  disagreeable  reality  with  another.  Sir  Peter 
Teazle  must  be  no  longer  the  comic  idea  of  a  fretful  old 
bachelor  bridegroom,  whose  teasing  (while  King  acted  it) 
were  evidently  as  much  played  off  at  you  as  they  were  meant 
to  concern  anybody  on  the  stage  —  he  must  be  a  real  person, 
capable  in  law  of  sustaining  an  injury — a  person  towards 
whom  duties  are  to  be  acknowledged — the  genuine  trim.  con. 
antagonist  of  the  villanous  seducer  Joseph.     To  realize  him 


166  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

more,  his  sufferings  Under  his  unfortunate  match  must  have 
the  downright  pungency  of  life — must  (or  should)  make  you, 
not  mirthful,  but  uncomfortable,  just  as  the  same  predicament 
would  move  you  in  a  neighbour  or  old  friend.  The  delicious 
scenes  which  give  the  play  its  name  and  zest  must  affect  you 
in  the  same  serious  manner  as  if  you  heard  the  reputation  of 
a  dear  female  friend  attacked  in  your  real  presence.  Crab- 
tree  and  Sir  Benjamin — those  poor  snakes  that  live  but  in 
the  sunshine  of  your  mirth — must  be  ripened  by  this  hot-bed 
process  of  realization  into  asps  or  amphisbaenas,  and  Mrs. 
Candour — oh  !  frightful ! — become  a  hooded  serpent.  Oh, 
who  that  remembers  Parsons  and  Dodd — the  wasp  and  butter- 
fly of  the  School  for  Scandal — in  those  two  characters  ;  and 
charming,  natural  Miss  Pope,  the  perfect  gentlewoman  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  fine  lady  of  comedy,  in  this  latter  part — 
would  forego  the  true  scenic  delight — the  escape  from  life — 
the  oblivion  of  consequences — the  holyday  barring  out  of  the 
pedant  reflection — those  saturnalia  of  two  or  three  brief  hours, 
well  won  from  the  world — to  sit  instead  at  one  of  our  modern 
plays — to  have  his  coward  conscience  (that  forsooth  must  not 
be  left  for  a  moment)  stimulated  with  perpetual  appeals — 
dulled  rather,  and  blunted,  as  a  faculty  without  repose  must 
be — and  his  moral  vanity  pampered  with  images  of  notional 
justice,  notional  beneficence,  lives  saved  without  the  spectator's 
risk,  and  fortunes  given  away  that  cost  the  author  nothing? 

No  piece  was,  perhaps,  ever  so  completely  cast  in  all  its 
parts  as  this  manager's  comedy.  Miss  Farren  had  succeeded 
to  x\lrs.  Abington  in  Lady  Teazle  ;  and  Smith,  the  original 
Charles,  had  retired  when  I  first  saw  it.  The  rest  of  the 
characters,  with  very  slight  exceptions,  remained.  I  remem- 
ber it  was  then  the  fashion  to  cry  down  John  Kemble,  who 
took  the  part  of  Charles  after  Smith ;  but,  I  thought,  very  un- 
justly. Smith,  I  fancy,  was  more  airy,  and  took  the  eye  with 
a  certain  gayety  of  person.  He  brought  with  him  no  sombre 
recollections  of  tragedy.  He  had  not  to  expiate,  the  fault  of 
having  pleased  beforehand  in  lofty  declamation.  He  had  no 
sins  of  Hamlet  or  of  Richard  to  atone  for.  His  failure  in 
these  parts  was  a  passport  to  success  in  one  of  so  opposite  a 
tendency.  Hut,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  weighty  sense  of 
Kemble  made  up  for  more  personal  incapacity  than  he  had  to 
answer  for.  His  harshest  tones  in  this  part  came  steeped 
and  dulcified  in  good-humour.  He  made  his  defects  a  grace. 
His  exact  declamatory  manner,  as  he  managed  it,  only  served 
to  convey  the  points  of  his  dialogue  with  more  precision.  It 
seemed  to  head  the  shafts  to  carry  them  deeper.  Not  one  of 
his  sparkling  sentences  was  lost.     I  remember  minutely  how 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  167 

he  delivered  each  in  succession,  and  cannot  by  any  effort  im- 
agine how  any  of  them  could  be  altered  for  the  better.  No 
man  could  deliver  brilliant  dialogue — the  dialogue  of  <  !ongreve 
or  of  Wveherlev — because  none  understood  it — half  so  well 
as  John  Kemble.  His  Valentine,  in  Love  for  Love,  was,  to 
my  recollection,  faultless.  He  flagged  sometimes  in  the  in- 
tervals of  tragic  passion.  He  would  slumber  over  the  level 
parts  of  an  heroic  character.  His  Macbeth  has  been  known 
to  nod.  But  he  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  particularly  alive 
to  pointed  and  witty  dialogue.  The  relaxing  levities  of  tra- 
gedy have  not  been  touched  by  any  since  him — the  playful, 
court-bred  spirit  in  which  he  condescended  to  the  players  in 
Hamlet — the  sportive  relief  which  he  threw  into  the  darker 
shades  of  Richard — disappeared  with  him.  He  had  his  slug- 
gish moods,  his  torpors — but  they  were  the  halting-stones  and 
resting-places  of  his  tragedy — politic  savings,  and  fetches  of 
the  breath — husbandry  of  the  lungs,  where  nature  pointed 
him  to  be  an  economist — rather,  I  think,  than  errors  of  the 
judgment.  They  were,  at  worst,  less  painful  than  the  eter- 
nal, tormenting,  unappeasable  vigilance,  the  "  lidless  dragon 
eyes,"  of  present  fashionable  tragedy 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  MUNDEN. 

Not  many  nights  ago  I  "had  come  home  from  seeing  this 
extraordinary  performer  in  Cockletop  ;  and  when  I  retired  to 
my  pillow,  his  whimsical  image  still  stuck  by  me,  in  a  man- 
ner as  to  threaten  sleep.  In  vain  I  tried  to  divest  myself  of 
it,  by  conjuring  up  the  most  opposite  associations.  I  resolved 
to  be  serious.  I  raised  up  the  gravest  topics  of  life  ;  private 
misery,  public  calamity.     All  would  not  do — 

"  There  the  antic  sate 
Mucking  our  slate" — 

his  queer  visnomy — his  bewildering  costume  —  all  the  strange 
things  which  he  had  raked  together — his  serpentine  rod  swag- 
gin  g  about  in  his  pocket — Cleopatra's  tear,  and  the  rest  of  his 
relics — O'Keefe's  wild  farce  and  his  wilder  commentary — till 
the  passion  of  laughter,  like  grief  in  excess,  relieved  itself  by 
its  own  weight,  inviting  the  sleep  which  in  the  first  instance 
it  had  driven  away. 


1G8  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

But  I  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  No  sooner  did  I  fall 
into  slumbers,  than  the  same  image,  only  more  perplexing, 
assailed  me  in  the  shape  of  dreams.  Not  one  Munden,  but 
five  hundred,  were  dancing  before  me,  like  the  faces  which, 
whether  you  will  or  no,  come  when  you  have  been  taking 
opium — all  the  strange  combinations  which  this  strangest  of 
all  strange  mortals  ever  shot  his  proper  countenance  into, 
from  the  day  he  came  commissioned  to  dry  up  the  tears  of 
the  town  for  the  loss  of  the  now  almost-forgotten  Edwin. 
Oh  for  the  power  of  the  pencil  to  have  fixed  them  when  I 
awoke!  A  season  or  two  since  there  was  exhibited  a  Ho- 
garth gallery.  I  do  not  see  why  there  should  not  be  a  Mun- 
den gallery.  In  richness  and  variety  the  latter  would  not  fall 
far  short  of  the  former. 

There  is  one  face  of  Farley,  one  face  of  Knight,  one  (but 
what  a  one  it  is  !)  of  Liston ;  but  Munden  has  none  that  you 
can  properly  pin  down,  and  call  Ms.  When  you  think  he  has 
exhausted  his  battery  of  looks  in  unaccountable  warfare  with 
your  gravity,  suddenly  he  sprouts  out  an  entirely  new  set  of 
features,  like  Hydra.  He  is  not  one,  but  legion.  Not  so 
much  a  comedian  as  a  company.  If  his  name  could  be 
multiplied  like  his  countenance,  it  might  fill  a  play-bill.  He, 
and  he  alone,  literally  makes  faces  ;  applied  to  any  other  per- 
son, the  phrase  is  a  mere  figure,  denoting  certain  modifica- 
tions of  the  human  countenance.  Out  of  some  invisible  ward- 
robe he  dips  for  faces,  as  his  friend  Suett  used  for  wigs,  and 
fetches  them  out  as  easily.  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  see 
him  some  day  put  out  the  head  of  a  river-horse  ;  or  come 
forth  a  pewet,  or  lapwing,  some  feathered  metamorphosis. 

I  have  seen  this  gifted  actor  in  Sir  Christopher  Curry — in 
Old  Dornton — diffuse  a  glow  of  sentiment  which  has  made 
the  pulse  of  a  crowded  theatre  beat  like  that  of  one  man  ; 
when  he  has  come  in  aid  of  the  pulpit,  doing  good  to  the 
moral  heart  of  a  people.  I  have  seen  some  faint  approaches 
to  this  sort  of  excellence  in  other  players.  But  in  the  grand 
grotesque  of  farce,  Munden  stands  out  as  single  and  unaccom- 
panied as  Hogarth.  Hogarth,  strange  to  tell,  had  no  follow- 
ers. The  school  of  Munden  began  and  must  end  with  him- 
self. 

Can  any  man  wonder  like  him?  can  any  man  see  ghosts 
like  him  ?  or  fight  with  his  own  shadow — "  skssa" — as  he  does 
in  that  strangely-neglected  thing,  the  Cobbler  of  Preston — 
where  his  alternations  from  the  Cobbler  to  the  Magnifies,  and 
from  the  Magnifico  to  the  Cobbler,  keep  the  brain  of  the  spec- 
tator in  as  wild  a  ferment,  as  if  some  Arabian  Night  were  be- 
ing acted  before  him?     AVho  like  him  can  throw,  or  ever  at- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  1G9 

tempted  to  throw,  a  preternatural  interest  over  the  commonest 
daily-life  objects  '.  A  table,  or  a  joint-stool,  in  his  concep- 
tion, rises  into  a  dignity  equivalent  to  Cassiopeia's  chair.  It 
is  invested  with  eonsteUatory  importance.  You  could  not 
speak  of  it  with  more  deference,  if  it  were  mounted  into  the 
firmament.  A.  beggar  in  the  hands  of  Michael  Angelo,  says 
Fuseli,  rose  the  Patriarch  of  Poverty.  80  the  gusto  of  Mun- 
den  antiquales  and  ennobles  what  it  touches.  His  pots  and 
his  ladles  are  as  grand  and  primal  as  the  seething-pots  and 
hooks  seen  in  an  old  prophetic  vision.  A  tub  of  butter,  con- 
templated by  him,  amounts  to  a  Platonic  idea.  He  under- 
stands a  leg  of  mutton  in  its  quiddity.  He  stands  wondering, 
amid  the  commonplace  materials  of  life,  like  primeval  man 
with  the  sun  and  stars  about  him. 


BLAKESMOOR  IN  II SHIRE. 

I  do  not  know  a  pleasure  more  affecting  than  to  range  at  will 
over  the  deserted  apartments  of  some  fine  old  family  mansion 
The  traces  of  extinct  grandeur  admit  of  a  better  passion 
than  envy ;  and  contemplations  on  the  great  and  good,  whom 
we  fancy  in  succession  to  have  been  its  inhabitants,  weave 
for  us  illusions  incompatible  with  the  bustle  of  modern  occu- 
pancy, and  vanities  of  foolish  present  aristocracy.  The  same 
difference  of  feeling,  I  think,  attends  us  between  entering  an 
empty  and  a  crowded  church.  In  the  latter  it  is  chance  but 
some  present  human  frailty — an  act  of  inattention  on  the  part 
of  some  of  the  auditory — or  a  trait  of  affectation,  or,  worse, 
vainglory,  on  that  of  the  preacher — puts  us  by  our  best 
thoughts,  disharmonizing  the  place  and  the  occasion.  Rut 
wouldst  thou  know  the  beauty  of  holiness  ? — go  alone  on  some 
weekday,  borrowing  the  keys  of  good  Master  Sexton,  traverse 
the  cool  aisles  of  some  country  church  ;  think  of  the  piety 
that  has  kneeled  there — the  congregations,  old  and  young,  that 
have  found  consolation  there — the  meek  pastor — the  docile 
parishioner  With  no  disturbing  emotions,  no  cross  conflicting 
comparisons,  drink  in  the  tranquillity  of  the  place,  till  thou 
thyself  become  as  fixed  and  motionless  as  the  marble  effigies 
that  kneel  and  weep  around  thee. 

Journeying  northward  lately,  I  could  not  resist  going  some 
few  miles  out  of  my  road  to  look  upon  the  remains  of  an  old 
great  house  with  which  I  had  been  impressed  in  this  way  in 
15  H 


170  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

infancy.  I  was  apprized  that  the  owner  of  it  had  lately  pulled 
it  down  ;  still  I  had  a  vague  notion  that  it  could  not  all  have 
perished,  that  so  much  solidity  with  magnificence  could  not 
have  been  crushed  all  at  once  into  the  mere  dust  and  rubbish 
which  I  found  it. 

The  work  of  ruin  had  proceeded  with  a  swift  hand  indeed, 
and  the  demolition  of  a  few  weeks  had  reduced  it  to — an 
antiquity. 

1  was  astonished  at  the  indistinction  of  everything.  Where 
had  stood  the  great  gates  ?  What  bounded  the  courtyard  ? 
Whereabout  did  the  outhouses  commence  ?  a  few  bricks  only 
lay  as  representatives  of  that  which  was  so  stately  and  so 
spacious. 

Death  does  not  shrink  up  his  human  victim  at  this  rate. 
The  burnt  ashes  of  a  man  weigh  more  in  their  proportion. 

Had  I  seen  these  brick-and-mortar  knaves  at  their  process 
of  destruction,  at  the  plucking  of  every  panel  I  should  have 
felt  the  varlets  at  my  heart.  I  should  have  cried  out  to  them 
to  spare  a  plank  at  least  out  of  the  cheerful  storeroom,  in 
whose  hot  window-seat  I  used  to  sit  and  read  Cowley,  with 
the  grdssplot  before,  and  the  hum  and  flappings  of  that  one 
solitary  wasp  that  ever  haunted  it  about  me — it  is  in  mine  ears 
now,  as  oft  as  summer  returns ;  or  a  panel  of  the  yellow 
room. 

Why,  every  plank  and  panel  of  that  house  for  me  had 
magic  in  it  The  tapestried  bedrooms — tapestry  so  much 
better  than  painting — not  adorning  merely,  but  peopling  the 
wainscots — at  which  childhood  ever  and  anon  would  steal  a 
look,  shifting  its  coverlet  (replaced  as  quickly)  to  exercise  its 
tender  courage  in  a  momentary  eye-encounter  with  those  stern 
bright  visages,  staring  reciprocally — all  Ovid  on  the  walls,  in 
colours  vivider  than  his  descriptions.  Action  in  mid  sprout, 
with  the  unappeasable  prudery  of  Diana ;  and  the  still  more 
provoking  and  almost  culinary  coolness  of  Dan  Phoebus,  eel- 
fashion,  deliberately  divesting  of  Marsyas. 

Then,  that  haunted  room — in  which  old  Mrs.  Battle  died — 
whereinto  I  have  crept,  but  always  in  the  daytime,  with  a 
passion  of  fear,  and  a  sneaking  curiosity,  terror-tainted,  to  hold 
communication  with  the  past.  How  shall  they  build  it  vp 
again  ? 

It  was  an  old  deserted  place,  yet  not  so  long  deserted  but 
that  traces  of  the  splendour  of  past  inmates  were  every- 
where apparent.  Its  furniture  was  still  standing — even  to  the 
tarnished  gilt  leather  battledoors,  and  crumbling  feathers  of 
shuttlecocks  in  the  nursery,  which  told  that  children  had  once 
played  there      But  I  was  a  lonely  child,  and  had  the  range  at 


ESSAYS    OF   ELIA.  17  J 

will  of  every  apartment,  knew  every  nook  and  corner,  won 
dered  and  worshipped  everywhere. 

The  solitude  of  childhood  is  not  so  much  the  mother  of 
thought  as  it  is  the  feeder  of  love,  and  silence,  and  admiration. 
So  strange  a  passion  for  the  place  possessed  me  in  those  years, 
that,  though  there  lay — I  shame  to  say  how  few  roods  distant 
from  the  mansion — half  hid  by  trees,  what  I  judged  some  ro- 
mantic lake,  such  was  the  spell  which  bound  me  to  the  house, 
and  such  my  carefulness  not  to  pass  its  strict  and  proper  pre- 
cincts, that  the  idle  waters  lay  unexplored  for  me  ;  and  not 
till  late  in  life,  curiosity  prevailing  over  elder  devotion,  I  found, 
to  my  astonishment,  a  pretty  brawling  brook  had  been  the 
Lacim  Incognitus  of  my  infancy.  Variegated  views,  extensive 
prospects — and  those  at  no  great  distance  from  the  house — I 
was  told  of  such — what  were  they  to  me,  being  out  of  the 
boundaries  of  my  Eden  ?  So  far  from  a  wish  to  roam,  I  would 
have  drawn,  methought,  still  closer  the  fences  of  my  chosen 
prison  ;  and  have  been  hemmed  in  by  a  yet  securer  cincture 
of  those  excluding  garden  walls.  I  could  have  exclaimed  with 
that  garden-loving  poet — 

"  Bind  me,  ye  woodbines,  in  your  twines ; 
Curl  me  about,  ye  gadding  vines ;  » 

And  oh  so  close  your  circles  lace, 
That  I  may  never  leave  this  place; 
But,  lest  your  fetters  prove  too  weak, 
Kre  I  your  silken  bondage  bre;ik, 
Do  you,  oh  brambles,  chain  me  too,     * 
And,  courteous  briers,  nail  me  through. 

I  was  here  as  in  a  lonely  temple.  Snug  firesides — the 
low-built  roof — parlours  ten  feet  by  ten — frugal  boards,  and  all 
the  homeliness  of  home — these  were  the  condition  of  my 
birth — the  wholesome  soil  which  I  was  planted  in.  Yet, 
without  impeachment  to  their  tenderest  lessons,  I  am  not  sorry 
to  have  had  glances  of  something  beyond  ;  and  to  have  taken, 
if  but  a  peep,  in  childhood,  at  the  contrasting  accidents  of  a 
great  fortune. 

To  have  the  feeling  of  gentility,  it  is  not  necessary  to  have 
been  born  gentle.  The  pride  of  ancestry  may  be  had  on 
cheaper  terms  than  to  be  obliged  to  an  importunate  race  of 
ancestors  ;  and  the  coatless  antiquary  in  his  unembl&zoned 
cell,  revolving  the  long  line  of  a  Mowbray's  or  De  Clifford's 
pedigree,  at  those  sounding  names  may  warm  himself  into  as 
gay  a  vanity  as  those  who  do  inherit  them.  The  claims  of 
birth  are  ideal  merely,  and  what  herald  shall  go  about  to  slnp 
me  6f  an  idea?  Is  it  trenchant  to  their  swords!  can  it  be 
hacked  off  as  a  spur  can?  or   lorn    away  like  a  tarnished 

garter? 

6  H  3 


172  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

What,  else,  were  the  families  of  the  great  to  us?  wha. 
pleasure  should  we  take  in  their  tedious  genealogies,  or  their 
capitulatory  brass  monuments  ?  What  to  us  the  uninterrupted 
current  of  their  bloods,  if  our  own  did  not  answer  within  us  to 
a  cognate  and  correspondent  elevation  1 

Or  wherefore,  else,  oh  tattered  and  diminished  'scutcheon 
that  hung  upon  the  time-worn  walls  of  thy  princely  stairs, 
Blakesmoor  !  have  I  in  childhood  so  oft  stood  poring  upon 
thy  mystic  characters — thy  emblematic  supporters,  with  their 
prophetic  "  Resurgam" — till,  every  dreg  of  peasantry  purging 
off,  I  received  into  myself  very  gentility  ?  Thou  wert  first 
in  my  morning  eyes ;  and  of  nights  hast  detained  my  steps 
from  bedward,  till  it  was  but  a  step  from  gazing  at  thee  to 
dreaming  on  thee. 

This  is  the  only  true  gentry  by  adoption ;  the  veritable 
change  of  blood,  and  not,  as  empirics  have  fabled,  by  trans- 
fusion. 

Who  it  was  by  dying  that  had  earned  the  splendid  trophy, 
I  know  not,  I  inquire  not ;  but  its  fading  rags,  and  colours 
cobweb-stained,  told  that  its  subject  was  of  two  centuries 
back. 

And  what  if  my  ancestor  at  that  date  was  some  Damcetas 
— feeding  ilocks  not  his  own  upon  the  hills  of  Lincoln — did 
I  in  less  earnest  vindicate  to  myself  the  family  trappings  of 
this  once  proud  y£gon  ? — repaying  by  a  backward  triumph 
the  insults  he  might  possibly  have  heaped  in  his  lifetime  up- 
on my  poor  pastoral  progenitor. 

If  it  were  presumption  so  to  speculate,  the  present  owners 
of  the  mansion  had  least  reason  to  complain.  They  had  long 
forsaken  the  old  house  of  their  fathers  for  a  newer  trifle  ;  and 
1  was  left  to  appropriate  to  myself  what  images  I  could  pick 
up,  to  raise  my  fancy,  or  to  sooth  my  vanity. 

I  was  the  true  descendant  of  those  old  W s  ;    and  not 

the  present  family  of  that  name,  who  had  fled  the  old  waste 
places. 

Mine,  was  that  gallery  of  good  old  family  portraits,  which, 
as  I  have  gone  over,  giving  them  in  fancy  my  own  family 
name,  one — and  then  another — would  seem  to  smile,  reach- 
ing forward  from  the  canvass,  to  recognise  the  new  relation- 
ship ;  while  the  rest  looked  grave,  as  it  seemed,  at  the  vacan- 
cy in  their  dwelling,  and  thoughts  of  fled  posterity. 

That  beauty  with  the  cool  blue  pastoral  drapery,  and  a 
lamb — that  hung  next  the  great  bay  window — with  the  bright 

yellow  H shire  hair,  and  eye   of  watchet  hue — so  like 

my  Alice  !  —  I  am  persuaded  she  was  a  true  Elia — Mildred 
Elia,  I  take  it. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  173 

Mine,  too,  Blakesmooh,  was  thy  noble  marble  ball,  with 
its  mosaic  pavements,  and  its  Twelve  Cesars — stately  busts 
in  marble — ranged  round  :  of  whose  countenances,  young 
reader  of  faces  as  I  was,  the  frowning  beauty  of  Xero,  I  re- 
member, had  most  of  my  wonder  ;  hut  the  mild  Galba  had  my 
love.  There  they  stood  in  the  coldness  of  death,  yet  fresh- 
ness of  immortality. 

.Mine,  too,  thy  lofty  justice  hall,  with  its  one  chair  of  au- 
thority, high-backed  and  wickered,  once  the  terror  of  luckless 
poacher  or  self-forgetful  maiden — so  common  since,  that  bats 
have  roosted  in  it. 

Mine,  too — whose  else  ? — thy  costly  fruit-garden,  with  its 
sun-baked  southern  wall ;  the  ampler  pleasure-garden,  rising 
backward  from  the  house  in  triple  terraces,  with  llower-pots 
now  of  palest  lead,  save  that  a  speck  here  and  there,  saved 
from  the  elements,  bespake  their  pristine  state  to  have  been 
gilt  and  glittering  ;  the  verdant  quarters  backwarder  still ;  and, 
stretching  still  beyond,  in  old  formality,  thy  firry  wilderness, 
the  haunt  of  the  squirrel,  and  the  day-long  murmuring  wood- 
pigeon,  with  that  antique  image  in  the  centre,  god  or  goddess 
I  wist  not ;  but  child  of  Athens  or  old  Rome  paid  never  a  sin- 
cerer  worship  to  Pan  or  to  Sylvanus  in  their  native  groves, 
than  I  to  that  fragmental  mystery. 

Was  it  for  this  that  1  kissed  my  childish  hands  too  fervent- 
ly in  your  idol  worship,  walks  and  windings  of  Blakesmoor  ! 
for  this,  or  what  sin  of  mine,  has  the  plough  passed  over  your 
pleasant  places  ?  I  sometimes  think  that  as  men,  when  they 
die,  do  not  die  all,  so  of  their  extinguished  habitations  there 
may  be  a  hope — a  germe  to  be  revivified. 


POOR  RELATIONS. 

A  poor  relation — is  the  most  irrelevant  thing  in  nature — a 
piece  of  impertinent  correspondency — an  odious  approxima- 
tion— a  haunting  conscience — a  preposterous  shadow,  length- 
ening in  the  noontide  of  your  prosperity — an  unwelcome  re- 
membrancer— a  perpetually-recurring  mortification — a  drain 
on  your  purse — a  more  intolerable  dun  upon  your  pride — a 
drawback  upon  success — a  rebuke  to  your  rising — a  stain  in 
your  blood — a  blot  on  your  scutcheon — a  rent  in  your  gar- 
ment— a  death's  head  at  your  banquet — Agathocles'  pot — a 
Mordecai  in  your  gate — a  Lazarus  at  your  door — a  lion  in 
15* 


174  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

your  path — a  frog  in  your  chamber — a  fly  in  your  ointment — 
a  mote  in  your  eye — a  triumph  to  your  enemy,  an  apology  to 
your  friends — the  one  thing  not  needful — the  hail  in  harvest 
— the  ounce  of  sour  in  a  pound  of  sweet. 

He  is  known  by  his  knock.     Your  heart  telleth  you  "  That 

is  Mr. ."     A  rap,  between  familiarity  and  respect ;    that 

demands,  and,  at  the  same  time,  seems  to  despair  of,  enter- 
tainment. He  entereth  smiling,  and — embarrassed.  He 
holdeth  out  his  hand  to  you  to  shake,  and — draweth  it  back 
again.  He  casually  looketh  in  about  dinner-time — when  the 
table  is  full.  He  offereth  to  go  away,  seeing  you  have  com- 
pany— but  is  induced  to  stay.  He  filleth  a  chair,  and  your 
visiter's  two  children  are  accommodated  at  a  side  table.  He 
never  cometh  upon  open  days,  when  your  wife   says  with 

some  complacency,  "  My  dear,  perhaps  Mr. will  drop  in 

to-day."  He  remembereth  birthdays — and  professeth  he  is 
fortunate  to  have  stumbled  upon  one.  He  declareth  against 
fish,  the  turbot  being  small — yet  suffereth  himself  to  be  im- 
portuned into  a  slice  against  his  first  resolution.  He  sticketh 
by  the  port — yet  will  be  prevailed  upon  to  empty  the  remain- 
der glass  of  claret,  if  a  stranger  press  it  upon  him.  He  is  a 
puzzle  to  the  servants,  who  are  fearful  of  being  too  obsequi- 
ous, or  not  civil  enough,  to  him.  The  guests  think  "  they 
have  seen  him  before."  Every  one  speculateth  upon  his  con- 
dition ;  and  the  most  part  take  him  to  be — a  tide  waiter.  He 
calleth  you  by  your  Christian  name,  to  imply  that  his  other  is 
the  same  with  your  own.  He  is  too  familiar  by  half,  yet  you 
wish  he  had  less  diffidence.  With  half  the  familiarity  he 
aiight  pass  for  a  casual  dependant ;  with  more  boldness  he 
would  be  in  no  danger  of  being  taken  for  what  he  is.  He  is 
too  humble  for  a  friend,  yet  taketh  on  him  more  state  than  be- 
fits a  client.  He  is  a  worse  guest  than  a  country  tenant,  in- 
asmuch as  he  bringeth  up  no  rent — yet  'tis  odds,  from  his 
garb  and  demeanour,  that  your  guests  take  him  for  one.  He 
is  asked  to  make  one  at  the  whist-table  ;  refuseth  on  the  score 
of  poverty,  and — resents  being  left  out.  When  the  company 
break  up,  he  profi'ereth  to  go  for  a  coach — and  lets  the  ser- 
vant go.  He  recollects  your  grandfather ;  and  will  thrust  in 
some  mean  and  quite  unimportant  anecdote  of — the  family. 
He  knew  it  when  it  was  not  quite  so  flourishing  as  "he  is  blest 
in  seeing  it  now."  He  reviveth  past  situations,  to  institute 
what  he  calleth — favourable  comparisons.  With  a  reflecting 
sort  of  congratulation,  he  will  inquire  the  price  of  your  furni- 
ture ;  and  insults  you  with  a  special  commendation  of  your 
window-curtains.  He  is  of  opinion  that  the  urn  is  the  more 
elegant  shape,  but,  after  all,  there  was  something  more  com- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  175 

fortable  about  the  old  teakettle — which  you  must  remember. 
He  dare  say  you  must  find  a  great  convenience  in  having  ;i 
carriage  of  your  own,  and  appealeth  to  your  lady  if  it  is  not 
so.  lnquireth  if  you  have  had  your  arms  done  on  vellum  yet ; 
and  did  not  know,  till  lately,  that  such  and  such  had  been  the 
crest  of  the  family.  His  memory  is  unreasonable  ;  his  com- 
pliments perverse  ;  his  talk  a  trouble  ;  his  stay  pertinacious; 
and  when  he  goeth  away,  you  dismiss  his  chair  into  a  corner, 
as  precipitately  as  possible,  and  feel  fairly  rid  of  two  nui- 
sances. 

There  is  a  worse  evil  under  the  sun,  and  that  is — a  female  poor 
relation.  You  may  do  something  with  the  other  ;  you  may 
pass  him  off  tolerably  well ;  but  your  indigent  she-relative  is 
hopeless.  "He  is  an  old  humourist,"  you  may  say,  "  and 
affects  to  go  threadbare.  His  circumstances  are  better  than 
folks  would  take  them  to  be.  You  are  fond  of  having  a 
character  at  your  table,  and  truly  he  is  one."  But  in  the  in- 
dications of  female  poverty  there  can  be  no  disguise.  No 
woman  dresses  below  herself  from  caprice.     The  truth  must 

out  without  shuffling.     "  She  is  plainly  related  to  the  L s  ; 

or  what  does  she  at  their  house  V  She  is,  in  all  probability, 
your  wife's  cousin.  Nine  limes  out  of  ten,  at  least,  this  is  the 
case.  Her  garb  is  something  between  a  gentlewoman  and  a 
beggar,  yet  the  former  evidently  predominates.  She  is  most 
provokingly  humble,  and  ostentatiously  sensible  to  her  in- 
feriority. He  may  require  to  be  repressed  sometimes — ali- 
quando  svfflaminandus  crat — but  there  is  no  raising  her.  You 
send  her  soup  at  dinner,  and  she  begs  to  be  helped — after  the 

gentlemen.     Mr. requests  the  honour  of  taking  wine  with 

her  ;  she  hesitates  between  Port  and  Madeira,  and  chooses  the 
former — because  he  does.  She  calls  the  servant  sir  ;  and 
insists  on  not  troubling  him  to  hold  her  plate.  The  house- 
keeper patronises  her.  The  children's  governess  takes  upon 
her  to  correct  her,  when  she  has  mistaken  the  piano  for  a 
harpsichord. 

Richard  Amlet,  Esq.,  in  the  play,  is  a  notable  instance 
of  the  disadvantages  to  which  this  chimerical  notion  of 
uflinity  constituting  a  claim  to  acquaintance  may  subject  the 
spirit  of  a  gentleman.  A  little  foolish  blood  is  all  that  is  be- 
tween him  and  a  lady  with  a  great  estate.  His  stars  are  per- 
petually crossed  by  the  malignant  maternity  of  an  old  woman, 
who  persists  in  calling  him  "  her  son  Dick."  But  she  has 
wherewithal  in  the  end  to  recompense  his  indignities,  and  float 
him  again  upon  the  brilliant  surface,  under  which  it  had  been 
her  seeming  business  and  pleasure  all  along  to  sink  him.  All 
men,  besides,  are   not  of  Dick's  temperament.     I  knew  an 


178  ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A, 

Amlct  in  real  life,  who,  wanting  Dick's  buoyancy,  sank  indeed. 
Poor  W was  of  my  own  standing  at  Christ's,  a  fine  clas- 
sic, and  a  youth  of  promise.  If  he  had  a  blemish,  it  was  too 
much  pride  ;  but  its  quality  was  inoffensive  ;  it  was  not  of 
that  sort  which  hardens  the  heart,  and  serves  to  keep  inferiors 
at  a  distance ;  it  only  sought  to  ward  off  derogation  from  it- 
self. It  was  the  principle  of  self-respect  carried  as  far  as"  it 
could  go,  without  infringing  upon  that  respect,  which  he  would 
have  every  one  else  equally  maintain  for  himself.  He  would 
have  you  to  think  alike  with  him  on  this  topic.  Many  a 
quarrel  have  I  had  with  him,  when  we  were  rather  older  boys, 
and  our  tallness  made  us  more  obnoxious  to  observation  in  the 
blue  clothes,  because  I  would  not  thread  the  alleys  and  blind 
ways  of  the  town  with  him  to  elude  notice,  when  we  have  been 
out  together  on  a  holyday  in  the  streets  of  this  sneering  and 

prying  metropolis.     W went,  sore  with  these  notions,  to 

Oxford,  where  the  dignity  and  sweetness  of  a  scholar's  life, 
meeting  with  the  alloy  of  an  humble  introduction,  wrought  in 
him  a  passionate  devotion  to  the  place,  with  a  profound  aver- 
sion from  the  society.  The  servitor's  gown  (worse  than  his 
school  array)  clung  to  him  with  Nessian  venom.  He  thought 
himself  ridiculous  in  a  garb,  under  which  Latimer  must  have 
Avalked  erect ;  and  in  which  Hooker,  in  his  young  days,  pos- 
sibly flaunted  in  a  vein  of  no  discommendable  vanity.  In  the 
depth  of  college  shades,  or  in  his  lonely  chamber,  the  poor 
student  shrunk  from  observation.  He  found  shelter  among 
books,  which  insult  not ;  and  studies,  that  ask  no  questions  of 
a  youth's  finances.  He  was  lord  of  his  library,  and  seldom 
cared  for  looking  out  beyond  his  domains.  The  healing  in- 
fluence of  studious  pursuits  was  upon  him,  to  sooth  and  to 
abstract.  He  was  almost  a  healthy  man  ;  when  the  wayward- 
ness of  his  fate  broke  out  against  him  with  a  second  and  worse 

maligr.ity.     The  father  of  W had  hitherto  exercised  the 

humble  profession  of  house-painter  at  N ,  near  Oxford. 

A  supposed  interest  with  some  of  the  heads  of  colleges  had 
now  induced  him  to  take  up  his  abode  in  that  city,  with  the 
hope  of  being  employed  upon  some  public  works  which  were 
talked  of.  From  that  moment  I  read  in  the  countenance  of 
the  young  man  the  determination  which  at.  length  tore  him 
from  academical  pursuits  for  ever.  To  a  person  unacquainted 
with  our  universities,  the  distance  between  the  gownsmen  and 
the  townsmen,  as  they  are  called — the  trading  part  of  the  lat- 
ter especially — is  carried  to  an  excess  that  would  appear  harsh 
and  incredible.  The  temperament  of  W 's  father  was  dia- 
metrically the  reverse  of  his  own.      Old  W was  a  little, 

busy,  cringing  trad-esman,  who,  with   his  son  upon  his  arm, 


ESSAYS    OF    LUX.  177 

would  slant!  bowing  and  scraping,  cap  in  hand,  to  anything 
that  wore  the  semblance  of  a  gown— insensible  to  the  winks 
and  opener  remonstrances  of  the  young  man,  to  whose  cham- 
ber-fellow, or  equal  in  standing,  perhaps,  he  was  thus  obse- 
quiously and  gratuitously  ducking.      .Such   a   state   of  things 

could  not  last.      ^V must  change  the  air  of  Oxford  or  be 

suffocated.  He  chose  the  former  ;  and  let  the  sturdy  moralist, 
who  strains  the  point  of  the  filial  duties  as  high  as  they  can 
Inar,  censure  the  dereliction  ;  he  cannot  estimate  the  struggle. 

1  stood  with  W ■,  the  last  afternoon  I  ever  saw  him,  under 

the  eaves  of  his  paternal  dwelling.  It  was  in  the  fine  lane 
leading  from   the   High-street  to   the  back  of  ****  college, 

where  W kept  his  rooms.     He  seemed  thoughtful,  and 

more  reconciled.  I  ventured  to  rally  him — finding  him  in  a 
better  mood — upon  a  representation  of  the  artist  evangelist, 
which  the  old  man,  whose  affairs  were  beginning  to  flourish, 
had  caused  to  be  set  up  in  a  splendid  sort  of  frame  over  his 
really  handsome    shop,  either   as  a  token  of  prosperity,  or 

badge  of  gratitude   to  his   saint.     W looked   up  at  the 

Luke,  and,  like  Satan,  "knew  his  mounted  sign — and  fled." 
A.  letter  on  his  father's  table  the  next  morning  announced  that 
he  had  accepted  a  commission  in  a  regiment  about  to  embark 
for  Portugal.  He  was  among  the  lirst  who  perished  before 
the  walls  of  St.  Sebastian. 

1  do  not  know  how,  upon  a  subject  which  I  began  with 
treating  half  seriously,  I  should  have  fallen  upon  a  recital  so 
eminently  painful  ;  but  this  theme  of  poor  relationship  is  re- 
plete with  so  much  matter  for  tragic  as  well  as  comic  asso- 
ciations, that  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  account  distinct  without 
blending.  The  earliest  impressions  which  I  received  on  this 
matter  are  certainly  not  attended  with  anything  painful  or 
my  humiliating  in  the  recalling.  At  my  father's  table  (no 
vrrv  splendid  one)  was  to  be  found,  every  Saturday,  the  mys- 
terious figure  of  an  aged  gentleman,  clothed  in  neat  black,  of 
a  sad  yet  comely  appearance.  His  deportment  was  of  the 
essence  of  gravity  ;  his  words  few  or  none  ;  and  I  was  not 
to  nmke  a  noise  in  his  presence.  I  had  little  inclination  to 
do  so — for  my  cue  was  to  admire  in  silence.  A  particular 
elbow-chair  was  appropriated  to  him,  which  was  in  no  case 
to  be  violated.  A  peculiar  sort  of  sweet  pudding,  which 
appeared  on  no  other  occasion,  distinguished  the  days  of  his 
coming.  I  used  to  think  him  a  prodigiously  rich  man.  All  I 
could  make  out  of  him  was,  that  he  and  my  father  had  been 
schoolfellows  a  world  ago  at  Lincoln,  and  that  he  came  from 
the  Mint.  The  Mint  I  knew  to  be  a  place  where  all  the 
money  was  coined — and  I  thought  he  was  the  owner  of  all  '.ha* 


j-g  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

money.  Awful  ideas  of  the  Tower  twined  themselves  about 
his  presence.  He  seemed  above  human  infirmities  and  pas- 
sions. A  sort  of  melancholy  grandeur  invested  him.  From 
some  inexplicable  doom  I  fancied  him  obliged  to  go  about  in 
an  eternal  suit  of  mourning  ;  a  captive — a  stately  being,  let 
out  of  the  Tower  on  Saturdays.  Often  have  I  wondered  at 
the  temerity  of  my  father,  who,  in  spite  of  an  habitual  gen- 
eral respect  which  we  all  in  common  manifested  towards  him, 
would  venture  now  and  then  to  stand  up  against  him  in  some 
argument  touching  their  youthful  days.  The  houses  of  the 
ancient  city  of  Lincoln  are  divided  (as  most  of  my  readers 
know)  between  the  dwellers  on  the  hill  and  in  the  valley. 
This  marked  distinction  formed  an  obvious  division  between 
the  boys  who  lived  above  (however  brought  together  in  a 
common  school)  and  the  boys  whose  paternal  residence  was 
'  on  the  plain  ;  a  sufficient  cause  of  hostility  in  the  code  of 
these  young  Grotiuses.  My  father  had  been  a  leading  moun- 
taineer ;  and  would  still  maintain  the  general  superiority,  in 
skill  and  hardihood,  of  the  Above  Boys  (his  own  faction)  over 
the  Below  Boys,  (so  were  they  called,)  of  which  party  his  con- 
temporary had  been  a  chieftain.  Many  and  hot  were  the  skir- 
mishes on  this  topic — the  only  one  upon  which  the  old  gen- 
tleman was  ever  brought  out — and  bad  blood  bred  ;  even  some- 
times almost  to  the  recommencement  (so  I  expected)  of  ac- 
tual hostilities.  But  my  father,  who  scorned  to  insistupon 
advantages,  generally  contrived  to  turn  the  conversation  upon 
some  adroit  by-commendation  of  the  old  minster ;  in  the 
general  preference  of  which,  before  all  other  cathedrals  in  the 
island,  the  dweller  on  the  hill  and  the  plain-born  could  meet 
on  a  conciliating  level,  and  lay  down  their  less  important  dif- 
ferences. Once  only  I  saw  the  old  gentleman  really  ruffled, 
and  I  remembered  with  anguish  the  thought  that  came  over 
me  :  "  Perhaps  he  will  never  come  here  again."  He  had  been 
pressed  to  take  another  plate  of  the  viand,  which  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  as  the  indispensable  concomitant  of  his  visits. 
He  had  refused,  with  a  resistance  amounting  to  rigour — when 
my  aunt,  an  old  Lincoluian,  but  who  had  something  of  this  in 
common  with  my  cousin  Bridget,  that  she  would  sometimes 
press  civility  out  of  season — uttered  the  following  memorable 
application — "  Do  take  another  slice,  Mr.  Billet,  for  you  do 
not  get  pudding  every  day."  The  old  gentleman  said  nothing 
at  the  time — but  he  took  occasion  in  the  course  of  the  evening, 
when  some  argument  had  intervened  between  them,  to  utter, 
with  an  emphasis  which  chilled  the  company,  and  which 
chills  me  now  as  I  write  it — "  Woman,  you  arc  superannuated." 
John  Billet  did  not  survive  long  alter  the  digestin"  of  this 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  179 

affront ;  but  he  survived  long  enough  to  assure  me  that  peace 
was  actually  restored!  and,  if  I  remember  aright,  another 
pudding  was  discreetly  substituted  in  the  place  of  tbat  winch 
had  occasioned  the  offence,  lie  died  at  tbe  Mint,  (anno  1781,) 
where  he  had  long  held  what  he  accounted  a  comfortable  in- 
dependence ;  and  with  five  pounds  fourteen  shillings  and  a 
penny,  which  were  found  in  bis  escrutoire  after  his  decease, 
left  the  world,  blessing  God  that  he  had  enough  to  bury  him, 
and  that  he  had  never  been  obliged  to  any  man  lor  a  sixpence. 
This  was — a  poor  relation. 


STAGE  ILLUSION. 

A  play  is  said  to  be  well  or  ill  acted  in  proportion  to  tho 
scenical  illusion  produced.  Whether  such  illusion  can  in  any 
case  be  perfect,  is  not  the  question.  The  nearest  approach 
to  it,  we  are  told,  is  when  the  actor  appears  wholly  uncon- 
scious of  the  presence  of  spectators.  In  tragedy — in  all 
which  is  to  affect  the  feelings — this  undivided  attention  to  his 
stage  business  seems  indispensable.  Yet  it  is,  in  fact,  dis- 
pensed with  every  day  by  our  cleverest  tragedians  ;  and  while 
these  references  to  an  audience,  in  the  shape  of  rant  or  sen- 
timent, are  not  too  frequent  or  palpable,  a  sufficient  quantity 
of  illusion  for  the  purposes  of  dramatic  interest  may  be  said 
to  be  produced  in  spite  of  them.  But,  tragedy  apart,  it  may 
be  inquired  whether,  in  certain  characters  in  comedy,  espe- 
cially those  which  are  a  little  extravagant,  or  which  involve 
some  notion  repugnant  to  the  moral  sense,  it  is  not  a  proof  of 
the  highest  skill  in  the  comedian  when,  without  absolutely 
appealing  to  an  audience,  he  keeps  up  a  tacit  understanding 
with  them  ;  and  makes  them,  unconsciously  to  themselves,  a 
party  in  the  scene.  The  utmost  nicety  is  required  in  the 
mode  of  doing  this  ;  but  we  speak  only  of  the  great  artists  in 
tbe  profession. 

The  most  mortifying  infirmity  in  human  nature  to  feel  in 
ourselves,  or  to  contemplate  in  another,  is,  perhaps,  coward- 
ice. To  see  a  coward  done  to  the  life  upon  a  stage  would 
produce  anything  but  mirth.  Yet  we  most  of  us  remember 
Jack  Bannister's  cowards.  Could  anything  be  more  agree- 
able, more  pleasant  1  AVe  loved  the  rogues.  How  was  this 
effected  but  by  the  exquisite  art  of  the  actor  in  a  perpetual 
sub-iiismuation  to  us,  the  spectators,  even  in  the  extremity  of 


180  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  shaking-fit,  that  he  was  not  half  such  a  coward  as  we  took 
him  for  ?  We  saw  all  the  common  symptoms  of  the  malady 
upon  him  ;  the  quivering  lip,  the  cowering  knees,  the  teeth 
chattering;  and  could  have  sworn  "that  man  was  frightened." 
But  we  forgot  all  the  while — or  kept  it  almost  a  secret  to  our- 
selves— that  he  never  once  lost  his  self-possession ;  that  he 
let  out  by  a  thousand  droll  looks  and  gestures — meant  at  us, 
and  not  at  all  supposed  to  be  visible  to  his  fellows  in  the 
scene,  that  his  confidence  in  his  own  resources  had  never 
once  deserted  him.  Was  this  a  genuine  picture  of  a  coward? 
or  not  rather  a  likeness,  which  the  clever  artist  contrived  to 
palm  upon  us  instead  of  an  original ;  while  we  secretly  con- 
nived at  the  delusion  for  the  purpose  of  greater  pleasure,  than 
a  more  genuine  counterfeiting  of  the  imbecility,  helplessness, 
and  utter  self-desertion,  which  we  know  to  be  concomitants 
of  cowardice  in  real  life,  could  have  given  us  ? 

Why  are  misers  so  hateful  in  the  world,  and  so  endurable 
on  the  stage,  but  because  the  skilful  actor,  by  a  sort  of  sub- 
reference,  rather  than  direct  appeal  to  ns,  disarms  the  char- 
acter of  a  great  deal  of  its  odiousness,  by  seeming  to  engage 
our  compassion  for  the  insecure  tenure  by  which  he  holds  his 
money-bags  and  parchments  ?  By  this  subtle  vent  half  of  the 
hatefulness  of  the  character—the  self-closeness  with  which 
in  real  life  it  coils  itself  up  from  the  sympathies  of  men — 
evaporates.  The  miser  becomes  sympathetic  ;  i.  c.,  is  no  gen- 
uine miser.  Here  again  a  diverting  likeness  is  substituted 
for  a  very  disagreeable  reality. 

Spleen,  irritability — the  pitiable  infirmities  of  old  men, 
■which  produce  only  pain  to  behold  in  the  realities,  counter- 
feited upon  a  stage,  divert  not  altogether  for  the  comic  appen- 
dages to  them,  but  in  part  from  an  inner  conviction  that  they 
are  being  acted  before  us  ;  that  a  likeness  only  is  going  on, 
and  not  the  thing  itself.  They  please  by  being  done  under  the 
life,  or  beside  it ;  not  to  the  life.  When  Gatty  acts  an  old 
man,  is  he  angry  indeed?  or  only  a  pleasant  counterfeit,  just 
enough  of  a  likeness  to  recognise,  without  pressing  upon  us 
the  uneasy  sense  of  reality  ? 

Comedians,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  may  be  too  natu- 
ral. It  was  the  case  with  a  late  actor.  Nothing  could  be 
more  earnest  or  true  than  the  manner  of  Mr.  Emery  ;  this 
told  excellently  in  his  Tyke,  and  characters  of  a  tragic  cast. 
But  when  he  carried  the  same  rigid  exclusiveness  of  attention 
to  the  stage  business,  and  wilful  blindness  and  oblivion  of 
everything  before  the  curtain  into  his  comedy,  it  produced  a 
harsh  and  dissonant  effect.  He  was  out  of  keeping  with  the 
rest  of  the  persona  dramatis.     There  was   as  little  link  be- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  1S1 

tween  him  and  them  as  between  himself  and  th«  audience 
He  was  a  third  estate,  dry,  repulsive,  and  unsocial  to  all. 
Individually  considered,  his  execution  was  masterly.  But 
comedy  is  not  this  unbending  thing  ;  for  this  reason,  that  the 
same  degree  of  credibility  is  not  required  of  it  as  to  serious 
scenes.  The  degrees  of  credibility  demanded  to  the  two 
things  may  be  illustrated  by  the  different  sort  of  truth  which 
mc  expect  when  a  man  tells  us  a  mournful  or  a  merry  story. 
If  we  suspect  the  former  of  falsehood  in  any  one  tittle,  we  re- 
ject it  altogether.  Our  tears  refuse  to  flow  at  a  suspected 
imposition.  But  the  teller  of  a  mirthful  tale  has  latitude  al- 
lowed him.  We  are  content  with  less  than  absolute  truth. 
'Tis  the  same  with  dramatic  illusion.  We  confess  we  love 
in  comedy  to  see  an  audience  naturalized  behind  the  scenes, 
taken  in  into  the  interest  of  the  drama,  welcomed  as  by- 
standers, however.  There  is  something  ungracious  in  a 
comic  actor  holding  himself  aloof  from  all  participation  or 
concern  with  those  who  are  come  to  be  diverted  by  him. 
Macbeth  must  see  the  dagger,  and  no  ear  but  his  own  be  told 
of  it ;  but  an  old  fool  in  farce  may  think  he  sees  something, 
and  by  conscious  words  and  looks  express  it,  as  plainly  as  he 
can  speak,  to  pit,  box,  and  gallery.  When  an  impertinent  in 
tragedy,  an  Osric,  for  instance,  breaks  in  upon  .the  serious 
passions  of  the  scene,  we  approve  of  the  contempt  witli 
which  he  is  treated.  But  when  the  pleasant  impertinent  of 
comedy,  in  a  piece  purely  meant  to  give  delight,  and  raise 
mirth  out  of  whimsical  perplexities,  worries  the  studious  man 
with  taking  up  his  leisure,  or  making  his  house  his  home,  the 
same  sort  of  contempt  expressed  (however  natural)  would 
destroy  the  balance  of  delight  in  the  spectators.  To  make 
the  intrusion  comic,  the  actor  who  plavs  the  annoyed  man 
must  a  little  desert  nature  ;  he  must,  in  short,  be  thinking  of 
the  audience,  and  express  only  so  much  dissatisfaction  and 
peevishness  as  is  consistent  with  the  pleasure  of  comedv. 
In  other  words,  his  perplexity  must  seem  half  put  on.  If  he 
repel  the  intruder  with  the  sober  set  face  of  a  man  in  earnest, 
and  more  especially  if  he  deliver  his  expostulations  in  a  tone 
which  in  the  world  must  necessarily  provoke  a  duel,  his  real- 
life  manner  will  destroy  the  whimsical  and  purely  dramatic 
existence  of  the  other  character,  (which,  to  render  it  comic,  de- 
mands an  antagonist  comicality  on  the  part  of  the  diameter 
opposed  to  it,)  and  convert  what  was  meant  for  mirth,  ratber 
than  belief,  into  a  downright  piece  of  impertinence  indee  !, 
which  would  raise  no  diversion  in  us,  but  rather  stir  pain,  to 
see  indicted  in  earnest  upon  any  unworthy  person.  A  very 
judicious  actor  (in  most  of  his  parts)  seems   to   have  fallen 


182  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

into  an  error  of  this  sort  in  his  playing  with  Mr.  Wrench  in 
the  farce  of  Free  and  Easy. 

Many  instances  would  be  tedious  ;  these  may  suffice  to 
show  that  comic  acting  at  least  does  not  always  demand  from 
the  performer  that  strict  abstraction  from  all  reference  to  an 
audience  which  is  exacted  of  it ;  but  that  in  some  cases  a 
sort  of  compromise  may  take  place,  and  all  the  purposes  of 
dramatic  delight  be  attained  by  a  judicious  understanding,  not 
too  openly  announced,  between  the  ladies  and  gentlemen — on 
both  sides  of  the  curtain. 


TO  THE  SHADE  OF  ELLISTON. 

Joyousest  of  once  imbodied  spirits,  whither  at  length  hast 
tbou  flown  ?  to  what  genial  region  are  we  permitted  to  con- 
jecture that  thou  hast  flitted  ? 

Art  thou  sowing  thy  wild  oats  yet  (the  harvest-time  was 
still  to  come  with  thee)  upon  casual  sands  of  Avernus  ?  or  art 
thou  enacting  Rover  (as  we  would  gladlier  think)  by  wander- 
ing Elysian  streams  ? 

This  mortal  frame,  while  thou  didst  play  thy  brief  antics 
among  us,  was  in  truth  anything  but  a  prison  to  thee,  as  the 
vain  Platonist  dreams  of  this  body  to  be  no  better  than  a  coun- 
ty jail,  forsooth,  or  some  house  of  durance  vile,  whereof 
the  five  senses  are  the  fetters.  Thou  knewest  better  than  to 
be  in  a  hurry  to  cast  ofl'  those  gyves  ;  and  had  notice  to  quit, 
I  fear,  before  thou  wert  quite  ready  to  abandon  this  fleshy 
tenement.  It  was  thy  Pleasure-house,  thy  Palace  of  Dainty 
Devices ;  thy  Louvre,  or  thy  Whitehall. 

What  new  mysterious  lodgings  dost  thou  tenant  now  ?  or 
when  may  we  expect  thy  aerial  house-warming. 

Tartarus  we  know,  and  we  have  read  of  the  blessed 
shades  ;  now  cannot  I  intelligibly  fancy  thee  in  either. 

Is  it  too  much  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  that  (as  the  school- 
men admitted  a  receptacle  apart  for  patriarchs  and  un-chrisom 
babes)  there  may  exist — not  far,  perchance,  from  that  store- 
house of  all  vanities,  which  Milton  saw  in  visions — a  limbo 
somewhere  for  players  ?  and  that 

"  Up  thither  like  aerial  vapours  fly 
Both  all  stage  things,  and  all  that  in  stage  things 
ISuilt  their  fond  hopes  of  glory,  or  lasting  fame  '! 
All  the  unaccomplished  works  of  authors'  hands 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  183 

Abortive,  monstrous,  or  unkindly  mix'd, 

Darnn'd  upon  earth,  fleet  thither — 

Play,  opera,  farce,  with  all  their  trumpery." 

There,  by  the  neighbouring  moon,  (by  some  not  improperly 
uipposed  thy  regent  planet  upon  earth,)  mavst  thou  not  still 
oe  acting  thy  managerial  pranks,  great  disimbodied  lessee  ? 
out  lessee  still,  and  still  a  manager. 

In  green-rooms,  impervious  to  mortal  eye,  the  muse  beholds 
thee  wieldiug  posthumous  empire. 

Thin  ghosts  of  Figurantes  (never  plump  on  earth)  circle 
thee  in  endlessly,  and  still  their  song  is,  Fy  on  sinful  fan- 
tasy. 

Magnificent  were  thy  capriccios  on  this  globe  of  earth, 
Kohert  William  Elllston  !  for  as  yet  we  know  not  thy 
new  name  in  heaven. 

It  irks  me  to  think,  that,  stripped  of  thy  regalities,  thou 
shouldst  ferry  over,  a  poor  forked  shape,  in  crazy  Stygian 
wherry.  Methinks  I  hear  the  old  boatman,  paddling  by  the 
weedy  wharf,  with  raucid  voice,  bawling  "Sculls,  sculls:" 
to  which,  with  waving  hand  and  majestic  action,  thou  deiyii- 
est  no  reply,  other   than  in  two  curt  monosyllables,  "  No 

OAKS." 

Hut  the  laws  of  Pluto's  kingdom  know  small  difference  be- 
tween king  and  cobbler ;  manager  and  call-boy  ;  and,  if 
haply  your  dates  of  life  were  conterminant,  you  are  quietly 
taking  vour  passage,  cheek  by  cheek,  (oh  ignoble  levelling  of 
death,)  with  the  shade  of  some  recently-departed  candle-snuffer. 

But  mercy  !  what  strippings,  what  tearing  off  of  histrionic 
robes  and  private  vanities  !  what  denudations  to  the  bone, 
before  the  surly  ferryman  will  admit  you  to  set  a  foot  with- 
in his  battered  lighter. 

Crowns,  sceptres;  shield,  sword,  and  truncheon;  thv  own 
coronation  robes  ;  (for  thou  hast  brought  the  whole  property- 
man's  wardrobe  with  thee,  enough  to  sink  a  navy  ;)  the  judge's 
ermine;  the  coxcomb's  wig;  the  snuff-box  a  la  FoppijigtfOi — 
all  must  overboard,  he  positively  swears  — and  that  ancient 
mariner  brooks  no  denial ;  for,  since  the  tiresome  monodrame 
of  the  old  Thracian  harper,  Charon,  it  is  to  be  believed,  hath 
shown  small  taste  for  theatricals. 

Ay,  now  'tis  done.  You  are  just  boat  weight ;  pura  et 
puta  (i/uz/Hi. 

But,  bless  me,  how  little  you  look  ! 

So  shall  we  all  look — kings  and  keysars — stripped  for  the 
last  voyage. 

But  the  murkv  rogue  poshes  off.  Adieu,  pleasant,  and 
thrice  pleasant  shade  !    with  my  parting  thanks  for  many  a 


184  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

heavy  hour  of  life  lightened  by  thy  harmless  extravaganzas, 
public  or  domestic. 

Rhadamanthus,  who  tries  the  lighter  causes  below,  leaving 
to  his  two  brethren  the  heavy  calendars — honest  Rhadamanth, 
always  partial  to  players,  weighing  their  party-coloured  exist- 
ence here  upon  earth — making  account  of  the  few  foibles 
that  may  have  shaded  thy  real  life,  as  we  call  it,  (though, 
substantially,  scarcely  less  a  vapour  than  thy  idlest  vagaries 
upon  the  boards  of  Drury,)  as  but  of  so  many  echoes,  natural 
repercussions,  and  results  to  be  expected  from  the  assumed 
extravagances  of  thy  secondary  or  mock  life,  nightly  upon  a 
stage — after  a  lenient  castigation,  with  rods  lighter  than  of 
those  Medusean  ringlets,  but  just  enough  to  "  whip  the  offend- 
ing Adam  out  of  thee,"  shall  courteously  dismiss  thee  at  the 
right-hand  gate — the  o.  r.  side  of  Hades — that  conducts  to 
masks  and  merry-makings  in  the  Theatre  Royal  of  Proser 
pine. 

PLAUDITO,  ET  VALETO. 


ELLISTONIANA. 

My  acquaintance  with  the  pleasant  creature,  whose  loss 
we  all  deplore,  was  but  slight. 

My  first  introduction  to  E.,  which  afterward  ripened  into 
an  acquaintance  a  little  on  this  side  of  intimacy,  was  over  a 
counter  of  the  Leamington  Spa  Library,  then  newly  entered 
upon  by  a  branch  of  his  family.  E.,  whom  nothing  misbe- 
came— to  auspicate,  I  suppose,  the  filial  concern,  and  set  it 
a-going  with  a  lustre — was  serving  in  person  two  damsels  fair, 
who  had  come  into  the  shop  ostensibly  to  inquire  for  some 
new  publication,  but  in  reality  to  have  a  sight  of  the  illustri- 
ous shopman,  hoping  some  conference.  With  what  an  air  did 
he  reach  down  the  volume,  dispassionately  giving  his  opinion 
upon  the  worth  of  the  work  in  question,  and  launching  out 
into  a  dissertation  on  its  comparative  merits  with  those  of 
certain  publications  of  a  similar  stamp,  its  rivals!  his  enchant- 
ed customers  fairly  hanging  on  his  lips,  subdued  to  their  au- 
thoritative sentence.  So  have  I  seen  a  gentleman  in  comedy 
acting  the  shopman.  So  Lovelace  sold  his  gloves  in  King- 
street.  1  admired  the.  histrionic  art,  by  which  he  contrived 
to  carry  clean  away  every  notion  of  disgrace  from  the  occu- 
pation he  had  so  generously  submitted  to  ;  and  from  that  hour 


ESSAYS    OF    GLIA.  165 

1  judged  him,  with  no  after  repentance,  to  bo  a  person  with 
whom  it  would  be  a  felicity  to  be  more  acquainted. 

To  descant  upon  bis  merits  as  a  comedian  would  be  su- 
perfluous. With  bis  blended  private  and  professional  habits 
alone  I  have  to  do;  that  harnjonfaus  fusion  of  the-  manners  of 
the  player  into  those  of  e very-day  life,  which  brought  the 
stage-boards  into  streets  and  dming-pafloiirs,  ami  kept  up 
the  play  when  the  play  was  ended.  t%  I  like  Wrencb,"  a 
friend  was  saying  to  him  one  day,  "because  he  is  the  same 
natural,  easy  creature  on  the  stage,  that  he  is  off.r — "Mv 
erase  exactly,"  retorted  Elliston,  with  a  charming  forgetfui- 
ness,  that  the  converse  ol  a  proposition  does  not  always  lead 
to  the  same  conclusion — "I  am  the  same  person  iff'the  stage 
that  I  am  an*  The  inference,  at  first  sight,  seems  identical; 
but  examine  it  a  little,  and  it  confesses  only,  that  the  one  per- 
former was  never,  and  the  other  always,  acting. 

And  in  truth  this  was  the  charm  of  Elliston 's  private  de- 
portment. You  had  a  spirited  performance  always  going  on 
before  your  eyes,  with  nothing  to  pay.  As  where  a  monarch 
takes  up  his  casual  abode  for  a  night,  the  poorest  hovel  which 
he  honours  by  his  sleeping  in  it,  becomes  ipso  facto  for  that 
time  a  palace  ;  so  wherever  Elliston  walked,  sat,  or  stood 
still,  there  was  the  theatre.  He  carried  about  with  him  his 
pit,  boxes,  and  galleries,  and  set  up  his  portable  playhouse  at 
corners  of  streets,  and  in  the  market-places.  Upon  flintiest 
pavements  he-trod  the  boards  still ;  and  if  his  theme  chanced 
to  be  passionate,  the  green  baize  carpet  of  tragedy  sponta- 
neously rose  beneath  his  feet.  Now  this  was  heartv,  and 
showed  a  love  for  his  art.  So  Apelles  always  painted — in 
thought.  So  G.  D.  always  poetizes.  I  hate  a  lukewarm  ar- 
tist. I  have  known  actors — and  some  of  them  of  Elliston's 
own  stamp — who  shall  have  agreeably  been  amusing  you  in 
the  part  of  a  rake  or  a  coxcomb,  through  the  two  or  three 
hours  of  their  dramatic  existence  ;  but  no  sooner  does  the 
curtain  fall  with  its  leaden  clatter,  but  a  spirit  of  lead  seems 
to  seize  on  all  their  faculties.  They  emerge  sour,  morose 
persons,  intolerable  to  their  families,  servants,  &c.  Another 
shall  have  been  expanding  your  heart  with  generous  deeds 
and  sentiments,  till  it  even  beats  with  yearnings  of  universal 
sympathy  ;  you  absolutely  long  to  go  home,  and  do  soma 
good  action.  The  play  seems  tedious,  till  you  can  get  fairly 
out  of  the  house,  and  realize  your  laudable  intentions.  A» 
length  the  final  bell  rings,  and  this  cordial  representative  ol 
all  that  is  amiable  in  human  breasts  steps  forth — a  miser. 
Elliston  was  more  of  a  piece.  Did  he  play  Hanger?  and  did 
Kanger  fill  the  general  bosom  of  the  town  with  satisfaction  1 
16* 


1S6  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

why  should  he  not  be  Ranger,  and  diffuse  the  same  cordial 
satisfaction  among  his  private  circles?  with  hist  temperament, 
his  animal  spirits,  his  good-nature,  his  follies  perchance,  could 
he  do  better  than  identify  himself  with  his  impersonation  ? 
Are  we  to  like  a  pleasant  rake  or  coxcomb  on  the  stage,  and 
give  ourselves  airs  of  aversion  for  the  identical  character  pre- 
sented to  us  in  actual  life  ?  or  what  would  the  performer  have 
gained  by  divesting  himself  of  the  impersonation  ?  Could 
the  man  Elliston  have  been  essentially  different  from  his  part 
even  if  he  had  avoided  to  reflect  to  us  studiously,  in  private 
circles,  the  airy  briskness,  the  forwardness,  and  scape-goat 
trickeries  of  his  prototype  1 

"  But  there  is  something  not  natural  in  this  everlasting 
acting ;  we  want  the  real  man." 

Are  you  quite  sure  that  it  is  not  the  man  himself,  whom 
you  cannot,  or  will  not  see,  under  some  adventitious  trappings, 
which,  nevertheless,  sit  not  at  all  inconsistently  upon  him  1 
What  if  it  is  the  nature  of  some  men  to  be  highly  artificial? 
The  fault  is  least  reprehensible  in  players.  Cibber  was  his 
own  Foppington,  with  almost  as  much  wit  as  Vanburgh  could 
add  to  it. 

"  My  conceit  of  his  person" — it  is  Ben  Jonson  speaking  of 
Lord  Bacon — "  was  never  increased  towards  him  by  his  place 
or  honours.  But  I  have,  and  do  reverence  him  for  the  great' 
ness,  that  was  only  proper  to  himself;  in  that  he  seemed  to 
me  ever  one  of  the  greatest  men  that  had  been  in  many  ages. 
In  his  adversity  I  ever  prayed  that  Heaven  would  give  him 
strength  ;  for  greatness  he  could  not  want." 

The  quality  here  commended  was  scarcely  less  conspic- 
uous in  the  subject  of  these  idle  reminiscences,  than  in  my 
Lord  Verulam.  Those  who  have  imagined  that  an  unexpected 
elevation  to  the  direction  of  a  great  London  theatre  affected 
the  consequence  of  Elliston,  or  at  all  changed  his  nature, 
knew  not  the  essential  greatness  of  the  man  whom  they  dis- 
parage. It  was  my  fortune  to  encounter  him  near  St.  Dun- 
stan's  Church  (which,  with  its  punctual  giants,  is  now  no 
more  than  dust  and  a  shadow)  on  the  morning  of  his  election 
to  that  high  office.  Grasping  my  hand  with  a  look  of  signifi- 
cance, he  only  uttered — "Have  you  heard  the  news?" — then 
with  another  look  following  up  the  blow,  ho  subjoined,  "I  am 
the  future  manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre."  Breathless  as 
he  saw  me,  he  stayed  not  for  congratulation  or  reply,  but 
mutely  stalked  away,  leaving  me  to  chew  upon  his  new-blown 
dignities  at  leisure.  In  fact,  nothing  could  be  said  to  it. 
Expressive  silence  alone  could  muse  his  praise.  This  was 
in  his  great  style. 


ESSAYS    OF    liLlA.  187 

But  was  he  less  great,  (be  witness,  oh  ye  powers  of  equa- 
nimity, that  supported  m  the  ruins  of  Carthage  the  consular 
exile,  and  more  recently  transmuted  lor  |  more  illustrious 
exile  the  barren  eonstableslup  of  l*'llia  into  an  image  of  im- 
perial France,)  when,  in  melancholy  after-years,  again,  much 
near  the  same  spot,  I  met  him,  when  that  sceptre  had  been 
wrested  from  his  hand,  and  his  dominion  was  curtailed  to  the 
petty  managership,  and  part  proprietorship,  of  the  small 
Olympic,  his  Elba  ?  He  still  played  nightly  upon  the  boards 
of  Drury,  but  in  parts,  alas!  allotted  to  him,  not  magnificently 
distributed  by  linn.  Waiving  his  great  loss  as  nothing,  and 
magnificently  sinking  the  sense  of  fallen  material  grandeur  in 
the  more  liberal  resentment  of  depreciations  done  to  his  more 
lofty  intellectual  pretensions,  "  Have  you  heard" — his  custom- 
ary exordium — "  have  you  heard,"  said  he,  "  how  they  treat 
me?  they  put  me  in  comedy.''''  Thought  I — but  his  finger  on 
his  lips  forbade  any  verbal  interruption — "  Where  could  they 
have  put  you  better  ?"  Then,  after  a  pause — "  Where  I  for- 
merly played  Romeo,  I  now  play  Mercutio," — and  so  again 
he  stalked  away,  neither  staying  nor  caring  for  responses. 

Oh,  it  was  a  rich  scene — but  Sir  A C ,  the  best 

of  story-tellers  and  surgeons,  who  mends  a  lame  narrative  al- 
most as  well  as  he  sets  a  fracture,  alone  could  do  justice  to 
it — that  I  was  witness  to,  in  the  tarnished  room  (that  had 
once  been  green)  of  that  same  little  Olympic.  There,  after 
his  deposition  from  imperial  Drurv,  he  substituted  a  throne. 
That  Olympic  Hill  was  his  "  highest  heaven  ;"  himself  "  Jove 
in  his  chair."  There  he  sat  in  state,  while  before  him,  on 
complaint  of  prompter,  was  brought  for  judgment — how  shall 
I  describe  her? — one  of  those  little  tawdry  things  that  flirt 
at  the  tails  of  choruses — a  probationer  for  the  town,  in 
either  of  its  senses — the  pertest  little  drab — a  dirtv  fringe 
and  appendage  of  the  lamps'  smoke — who,  it  seems,  on  some 
disapprobation  expressed  by  a  "  highly  respectable"  audience 
— had  precipitately  quitted  her  station  on  the  boards  and 
withdrawn  her  small  talents  in  disgust. 

"  And  how  dare  you,"  said  her  manager — assuming  a  cen- 
sorial severity  which  would  have  crushed  the  confidence  of  a 
Vestris,  and  disarmed  that  beautiful  rebel  herself  of  her  pro- 
fessional caprices — I  verily  believe,  he  thought  her  stand mg 
before  him — "  how  dare  you,  madam,  withdraw  yourself, 
without  a  notice,  from  your  theatrical  duties!*' — "I  was 
hissed,  sir." — "And  you  have  the  presumption  to  decide 
upon  the  taste  of  the  town?" — "  I  don't  know  that,  sir; 
but  I  will  never  stand  to  be  hissed,"  was  the  subjoinder  of 
young  Confidence — when,  gathering  up  his  features  into  one 


188  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

significant  mass  of  wonder,  pity,  and  expostulatory  indignation 
—in  a  lesson  never  to  have  been  lost  upon  a  creature  less  for- 
ward than  she  who  stood  before  him — his  words  were  these  : 
"  They  have  hissed  wie." 

'Twas  the  identical  argument  a  fortiori,  which  the  son  of 
Peleus  uses  to  Lycaon  trembling  under  his  lance,  to  persuade 
him  to  take  his  destiny  with  a  good  grace.  "  I  too  am  mortal." 
And  it  is  to  be  believed  that  in  both  cases  the  rhetoric  missed 
of  its  application  for  want  of  a  proper  understanding  with 
the  faculties  of  the  respective  recipients. 

"  Quite  an  opera  pit,"  he  said  to  me,  as  he  was  courteously 
conducting  me  over  the  benches  of  his  Surrey  Theatre,  the 
last  retreat  and  recess  of  his  every-day  waning  grandeur. 

Those  who  knew  Elliston  will  know  the  manner  in  which 
he  pronounced  the  latter  sentence  of  the  few  words  I  am  about 
to  record.  One  proud  day  to  me  he  took  his  roast  mutton  with 
us  in  the  Temple,  to  which  I  had  superadded  a  preliminary 
haddock.  After  a  rather  plentiful  partaking  of  the  meager 
banquet,  not  unrefreshed  with  the  humbler  sort  of  liquors,  I 
made  a  sort  of  apology  for  the  humility  of  the  fare,  observing 
that  for  my  own  part  I  never  ate  but  one  dish  at  dinner.  "  I 
too  never  eat  but  one  thing  at  dinner,"  was  his  reply — then, 
after  a  pause — "  reckoning  fish  as  nothing."  The  manner 
was  all.  It  was  as  if  by  one  peremptory  sentence  he  had 
decreed  the  annihilation  of  all  the  savoury  esculents,  which 
the  pleasant  and  nutritious-food-giving  ocean  pours  forth  upon 
poor  humans  from  her  watery  bosom.  This  was  greatness, 
tempered  with  considerate  tenderness  to  the  feelings  of  his 
scanty  but  welcoming  entertainer. 

Great  wert  thou  in  thy  life,  Robert  William  Elliston  !  and 
not  lessened  in  thy  death,  if  report  speak  truly,  which  says 
that  thou  didst  direct  that  thy  mortal  remains  should  repose 
under  no  inscription  but  one  of  pure  Latinity.  Classical 
was  thy  bringing  up !  and  beautiful  was  the  feeling  on  thy 
last  bed,  which,  connecting  the  man  with  the  boy,  took  thee 
back  in  thy  latest  exercise  of  imagination  to  the  days  when, 
undreaming  of  theatres  and  managerships,  thou  wert  a  scholar, 
and  an  early  ripe  one,  under  the  roofs  buildcd  by  the  munifi- 
cent and  pious  Colet.  For  thee  the  Pauline  muses  weep. 
In  elegies  that  shall  silence  this  crude  prose  they  shall  cele- 
brate thy  praise. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  169 


DETACHED  THOUGHTS  ON   BOOKS  AND 
READING 

"To  mind  the  inside  of  a  book  is  to  entertain  one's  self  with  the  forced 
product  of  another  man's  l>r;iin.  Now  I  think  a  in. in  of  quality  and  breeding 
may  be  much  amused  with  the  natural  sprouts  of  his  own." 

Lord  FopputLrlon  in  the  Relapse. 

An  ingenious  acquaintance  of  my  own  was  so  much  struck 
with  this  bright  sally  of  his  lordship,  that  he  has  left,  off 
reading  altogether,  to  the  great  improvement  of  his  originality. 
At  the  hazard  of  losing  some  credit  on  his  head,  I  must  con- 
fess that  I  dedicate  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  my  time  to 
other  people's  thoughts.  I  dream  away  my  life  in  others' 
speculations.  I  love  to  lose  myself  in  other  men's  minds. 
When  I  am  not  walking  I  am  reading;  I  cannot  sit  and  think. 
Books  think  for  me. 

I  have  no  repugnances.  Shaftesbury  is  not  too  genteel  for 
me,  nor  Jonathan  Wild  too  low.  I  can  read  anything  which  I 
call  a  book.  There  are  things  in  that  shape  which  I  cannot 
allow  for  such. 

In  this  catalogue  of  books  which  arc  no  books — biblla  a-biblia 
— I  reckon  court  calendars,  directories,  pocket-books,  draught- 
boards, bound  and  lettered  at  the  back,  scientific  treatises,  al- 
manacs, statutes  at  large  :  the  works  of  Hume,  Gibbon,  Rob- 
ertson, Beattie,Soame  Jenyns,  and,  generally,  all  those  volumes 
which  "no  gentleman's  library  should  be  without  :"  the  His- 
tories of  Flavius  Josephus,  (that  learned  Jew,)  and  Palcv's 
Moral  Philosophy.  With  these  exceptions,  I  can  read  al- 
most anything.  I  bless  my  stars  for  a  taste  so  catholic,  so 
unexcluding. 

I  confess  that  it  moves  my  spleen  to  see  these  things  in 
books'  clothing  perched  upon  shelves,  like  false  saints,  usurpers 
of  true  shrines,  intruders  into  the  sanctuary,  thrusting  out  the 
legitimate  occupants.  To  reach  down  a  well-bound  semblance 
of  a  volume,  and  hope  it  some  kind-hearted  playbook,  then, 
opening  what  "  seem  its  leaves,"  to  come  bolt  upon  a  wither- 
ing population  essay.  To  expect  a  Steele  or  a  Farquhar,  and 
find— Adam  Smith.  To  view  a  well-arrange^  assortment  bf 
blockheaded  Encyclopaedias  (Anglicaftas  or  Metropolitanas)  set 
out  in  an  array  of  Russia  or  Morocco,  when  a  tithe  of  that 
good  leather  would  comfortably  reclothe  my  shivering  folios  ; 
would  renovate  Paracelsus  himself,  and  enable  old  Raymtuid 


190  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

Lully  to  look  like  himself  again  in  the  world.  I  never  see 
these  impostors,  but  I  long  to  strip  them  to  warm  my  ragged 
veterans  in  their  spoils. 

To  be  strong-backed  and  neat-bound  is  the  desideratum  of 
a  volume.  Magnificence  comes  after.  This,  when  it  can  be 
afforded,  is  not  to  be  lavished  upon  all  kinds  of  books  indis- 
criminately. I  would  not  dress  a  set  of  magazines,  for  in- 
stance, in  full  suit.  The  dishabille,  or  half-binding,  (with 
Russia  backs  ever,)  is  our  costume.  A  Shakspeare,  or  a 
Milton,  (unless  the  first  editions,)  it  were  mere  foppery  to 
trick  out  in  gay  apparel.  The  possession  of  them  confers  no 
distinction.  The  exterior  of  them,  (the  things  themselves 
being  so  common,)  strange  to  say,  raises  no  sweet  emotions, 
no  tickling  sense  of  property  in  the  owner.  Thomson's 
Seasons,  again,  looks  best  (I  maintain  it)  a  little  torn  and 
dog's-eared.  How  beautiful  to  a  genuine  lover  of  reading  are 
the  sullied  leaves  and  worn-out  appearance,  nay,  the  very 
odour,  (beyond  Russia,)  if  we  would  not  forget  kind  feelings 
in  fastidiousness,  of  an  old  "  Circulating  Library"  Tom  Jones 
or  Vicar  of  Wakefield !  How  they  speak  of  the  thousand 
thumbs  that  have  turned  over  their  pages  with  delight ! — of 
the  lone  seamstress  whom  they  may  have  cheered  (milliner,  or 
harder-working  mantuamaker)  after  her  long  day's  needle-toil, 
running  far  into  midnight,  when  she  has  snatched  an  hour,  ill 
spared  from  sleep,  to  steep  her  cares,  as  in  some  Lethean  cup, 
in  spelling  out  their  enchanting  contents  !  Who  would  have 
them  a  whit  less  soiled?  What  better  condition  could  we  de- 
sire to  see  them  in  1 

In  some  respects,  the  better  a  book  is,  the  less  it  demands 
from  binding.  Fielding,  Smollet,  Sterne,  and  all  that  class  of 
perpetually  self-reproductive  volumes — great  Nature's  stereo- 
types— we  see  them  individually  perish  with  less  regret,  be- 
cause we  know  the  copies  of  them  to  be  "  eterne."  But 
where  a  book  is  at  once  both  good  and  rare — where,  the  indi- 
vidual is  almost  the  species,  and  when  that  perishes, 

"  We  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  torch 
That  can  its  light  reluinine" — 

such  a  book,  for  instance,  as  the  Life  of  the  Duke  ol  rView- 
castlc,  by  his  dulchess — no  casket  is  rich  enough,  no  casing 
sufficiently  durable,  to  honour  and  keep  safe  such  a  jewel. 

Not  only  rare  volumes  of  this  description,  which  seem 
hopeless  ever  to  be  reprinted,  but  old  editions  of  writers, 
such  as  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Bishop  Taylor.  Milton  in  his 
prose-works,  Fuller — of  whom  we  have  reprints,  yet  the  books 
themselves,  though  they  go  about,  and  are  talked  of  here  and 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  191 

there,  we  know,  have  not  endenizened  themselves  (nor  pos- 
sibly ever  will)  in  the  national  heart,  so  as  to  become  stock 
books  — it  is  good  to  possess  these  in  durable  and  costly  rov- 
ers. I  do  not  care  for  a  first  folio  of  Sbakspeare.  I  rather 
prefer  the  common  editions  of  Howe  and  Tonson,  without 
notes,  and  with  plates,  which,  being  so  execrably  bad,  serve 
as  maps  or  modest  remembrancers  to  the  text  ;  and  without 
pretending  to  any  supposable  emulation  with  it,  are  so  much 
better  than  the  Sbakspeare  gallery  engraving^  which  did.  I 
have  a  community  of  feeling  with  my  countrymen  about  his 
plays,  and  I  like  those  editions  of  him  best  which  have  been 
oftenest  tumbled  about  and  handled.  On  the  contrary,  I  can- 
not read  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  but  in  folio.  The  octavo 
editions  are  painful  to  look  at.  1  have  no  sympathy  with 
them.  If  they  were  as  much  read  as  the  current  editions  of 
the  other  poet,  I  should  prefer  them  in  that  shape  to  the  older 
one.  I  do  not  know  a  more  heartless  sight  than  the  reprint 
of  the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  What  need  was  there  of  un- 
earthing the  bones  of  that  fantastic  old  great  man  to  expose 
them  in  a  winding-sheet  of  the  newest  fashion  to  modern  cen- 
sure 1  what  hapless  stationer  could  dream  of  Burton's  ever  be- 
coming popular  ?  The  wretched  M. alone  could  not  do  worse, 
when  he  bribed  the  sexton  of  Stratford  church  to  let  him 
whitewash  the  painted  effigy  of  old  Sbakspeare,  which  stood 
there,  in  rude  but  lively  fashion  depicted,  to  the  very  colour 
of  the  cheek,  the  eye,  the  eyebrow,  hair,  the  very  dress  he 
used  to  wear — the  only  authentic  testimony  we  had,  however 
imperfect,  of  these  curious  parts  and  parcels  of  him.     They 

covered  him  over  with  a  coat  of  white  paint.     By  ,  if  I 

had  been  a  justice  of  peace  for  Warwickshire,  I  would  have 
clapped  both  commentator  and  sexton  fast  in  the  stocks,  for  a 
pair  of  meddling  sacrilegious  varlets. 

I  think  I  see  them  at  their  work — these  sapient  trouble- 
tombs. 

Shall  I  be  thought  fantastical  if  I  confess  that  the  names 
of  some  of  our  poets  sound  sweeter,  and  have  a  finer  relish  to 
the  ear — to  mine,  at  least — than  that  of  Milton  or  of  Shak- 
speare  ?  It  may  be  that  the  latter  are  more  staled  and  rung 
upon  in  common  discourse.  The  sweetest  names,  and  which 
carry  a  perfume  in  the  mention,  are  Kit  Marlowe,  Drayton, 
Drummohd  of  Ilawthornden,  and  Cowley. 

Much  depends  upon  when  and  vohert  you  read  a  hook.  In 
the  live  or  six  impatient  minutes  before  the  dinner  is  quite 
ready,  who  would  think  of  taking  Dp  tin*  I'airv  Queen  for  a 
Btop-gap,  or  a  volume  of  Bishop  Andrewes'  sermons? 

Milton  almost  requires  a  solemn  service  of  music  to  be 


192  ESSAYS    OF    LLIA. 

played  before  you  enter  upon  him.  But  he  brings  his  music, 
to  which,  who  listens,  had  need  biing  docile  thoughts  and 
purged  ears. 

Winter  evenings — the  world  shui  out — with  less  of  cere- 
mony the  gentle  Shakspeare  enters.  Ai  such  a  season,  the 
Tempest,  or  his  own  Winter's  Tale — 

These  two  poets  you  cannot  avoid  reading  aloud — to  your- 
self, or  (as  it  chances)  to  some  single  person  listening.  More 
than  one — and  it  degenerates  into  an  audience. 

Books  of  quick  interest,  that  hurry  on  for  incidents,  are  for 
the  eye  to  glide  over  only.  It  will  not  do  to  read  them  out. 
I  could  never  listen  to  even  the  better  kind  of  modern  novels 
without  extreme  irksomeness. 

A  newspaper,  read  out,  is  intolerable.  In  some  of  the 
bank  offices  it  is  the  custom  (to  save  so  much  individual 
time)  for  one  of  the  clerks — who  is  the  best  scholar — to  com- 
mence upon  the  Times  or  the  Chronicle,  and  recite  its  entire 
contents  aloud  pro  bono  publico.  With  every  advantage  of 
lungs  and  elocution,  the  effect  is  singularly  vapid.  In  barbers' 
shops  and  public  houses  a  fellow  will  get  up,  and  spell  out 
a  paragraph,  which  he  communicates  as  some  discovery. 
Another  follows  with  his  selection.  So  the  entire  journal 
transpires  at  length  by  piece-meal.  Seldom-readers  are  slow 
readers,  and  without  this  expedient  no  one  in  the  company 
would  probably  ever  travel  through  the  contents  of  a  whole 
paper. 

Newspapers  always  excite  curiosity.  No  one  ever  lays 
one  down  without  a  feeling  of  disappointment. 

What  an  eternal  time  that  gentleman  in  black,  at  Nando's, 
keeps  the  paper !  I  am  sick  of  hearing  the  waiter  bawling 
out  incessantly,  "  The  Chronicle  is  in  hand,  sir." 

Coming  in  to  an  inn  at  night — having  ordered  your  supper 
—  what  can  be  more  delightful  than  to  find  lying  in  the  win- 
dow-seat, left  there  time  out  of  mind  by  the  carelessness  of 
some  former  guest — two  or  three  numbers  of  the  old  Town 
and  Country  Magazine,  with  its  amusing  tete-a-tcte  pictures — 
"The  Royal  Lover  and  Lady  G ;"  "The  Melting  Pla- 
tonic and  the  old  Beau" — and  such  like  antiquated  scandal? 
Would  you  exchange  it — at  that  time,  and  in  that  place — for 
a  better  book? 

Poor  Tobin,  who  latterly  fell  blind,  did  not  regret  it  so 
much  for  the  weightier  kinds  of  reading — the  Paradise  Lost, 
or  Comus,  he  could  have  read  to  him — but  he  missed  the 
pleasure  of  skimming  over  with  his  own  eye  a  magazine  or 
a  light  pamphlet. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  193 

I  should  not  care  to  be  caught  in  the  serious  avenues  of 
some  cathedral  alone,  and  reading  Candida. 

I  do  not  remember  a  more  whimsical  surprise  than  having 
been  once  detected — by  a  familiar  damsel — reclined  at  my 
ease  upon  the  grass,  on  Primrose  Hill,  (her  Cythera,)  reading 
— Pamela.  There  was  nothing  in  the  hook  to  make  a  man 
seriously  ashamed  at  the  exposure ;  but  as  she  seated  herself 
down  by  me,  and  seemed  determined  to  read  in  company,  I 
could  have  wished  it  had  been — any  other  book.  We  read 
on  very  sociably  for  a  few  pages  ;  and,  not  finding  the  author 
much  to  her  taste,  she  got  up,  and — went  away.  Gentle 
casuist,  I  leave  it  to  thee  to  conjecture  whether  the  blush 
(for  there  was  one  between  us)  was  the  property  of  the  nymph 
or  the  swain  in  this  dilemma.  From  me  von  shall  never  get 
the  secret. 

I  am  not  much  a  friend  to  out-of-doors  reading.  I  cannot 
settle  my  spirits  to  it.  I  knew  a  Unitarian  minister,  who 
was  generally  to  be  seen  upon  Snow-hill  (as  yet  Skinner's- 
street  was  not)  between  the  hours  of  ten  and  eleven  in  the 
morning,  studying  a  volume  of  Lardner.  I  own  this  to  have 
been  a  strain  of  abstraction  beyond  my  reach.  I  used  to  ad- 
mire how  he  sidled  along,  keeping  clear  of  secular  contacts 
An  illiterate  encounter  with  a  porter's  knot  or  a  bread-basket 
would  have  quickly  put  to  flight  all  the  theology  I  am  master 
of,  and  have  left  me  worse  than  indifferent  to  the  five  points. 
There  is  a  class  of  street-readers  whom  I  can  never  con- 
template without  affection — the  poor  gentry,  who,  not  having 
wherewithal  to  buy  or  hire  a  book,  filch  a  little  learning  at  the 
open  stalls — the  owner,  with  his  hard  eye,  casting  envious 
looks  at  them  all  the  while,  and  thinking  when  they  will  have 
done.  Venturing  tenderly,  page  after  page,  expecting  every 
moment  when  he  shall  interpose  his  interdict,  and  yet  unable 
to  deny  themselves  the  gratification,  they  ''snatch  a  fearful 

joy."     Martin  15 ,  in   this  way,  by   daily  fragments,   got 

through  two  volumes  of  Clarissa,  when  the  stall-keeper 
damped  his  laudable  ambition  by  asking  him  (it  was  in  his 
younger  days)  whether  he  meant  to  purchase  the  work.  INI. 
declares  that  under  no  circumstance  of  his  life  did  he  ever 
peruse  a  book  with  half  the  satisfaction  which  he  took  in 
those  uneasy  snatches.  A  quaint  poetess  of  our  day  has 
moralized  upon  this  subject  in  two  very  touching  but  homelj 
stanzas. 

"  I  saw  a  boy  with  eager  eye 
Open  a  book  upon  a  stall, 
And  read,  as  he'd  devour  it  all ; 
Which  when  the  stallman  d*d  espy, 
17  I 


194  ESSAYS    OF    ELTA. 

Soon  to  the  boy  I  heard  him  call, 

'  You,  sir,  you  never  buy  a  book, 

Therefore  in  one  you  shall  not  look.' 

The  boy  pass'd  slowly  on,  and  with  a  sigh 

He  wish'd  he  never  had  been  taught  to  read. 

Then  of  the  old  churl's  books  he  should  have  had  no  need. 

"  Of  sufferings  the  poor  have  many, 
Which  never  can  the  rich  annoy  : 
[  soon  perceived  another  boy, 
Who  look'd  as  if  he'd  not  had  any 
Food,  for  that  day  at  least — enjoy 
The  sight  of  cold  meat  in  a  tavern  larder. 
This  boy's  case,  then  thought  I,  is  surely  harder. 
Thus  hungry,  longing,  thus  without,  a  penny, 
Beholding  choice  of  dainty-dressed  meat : 
No  wonder  if  he  wish  he  ne'er  had  learn'd  to  eat." 


THE  OLD  MARGATE  HOY. 

1  am  fond  of  passing  my  vacations  (I  believe  I  have  said 
so  before)  at  one  or  other  of  the  universities.  Next  to  these 
my  choice  would  fix  me  at  some  woody  spot,  such  as  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Henley  affords  in  abundance,  on  the  banks  of  my 
beloved  Thames.  But  somehow  or  other  my  cousin  contrives 
to  wheedle  me  once  in  three  or  four  seasons  to  a  watering- 
place.  Old  attachments  cling  to  her  in  spite  of  experience. 
We  have  been  dull  at  Worthing  one  summer,  duller  at  Brigh- 
ton another,  dullest  at  Eastbourn  a  third,  and  are  at  this  mo- 
ment doing  dreary  penance  at — Hastings  ! — and  all  because 
we  were  happy  many  years  ago  for  a  brief  week  at — Mar- 
gate. That  was  our  first  sea-side  experiment,  and  many  cir- 
cumstances combined  to  make  it  the  most  agreeable  holyday 
of  my  life.  We  had  neither  of  us  seen  the  sea.  and  we  had 
never  been  from  home  so  long  together  in  company. 

Can  I  forget  thee,  thou  old  Margate  Hoy,  with  thy  weather- 
beaten,  sun-burnt  captain,  and  his  rough  accommodations — ill 
exchanged  for  the  foppery  and  fresh-water  niceness  of  the 
modern  steam-packet  1  To  the  winds  and  waves  thou  com- 
mittedst  thy  goodly  freightage,  and  didst  ask  no  aid  of  magic 
fumes,  and  spells,  and  boiling  caldrons.  With  the  gales  of 
heaven  thou  wentest  swimmingly,  or,  when  it  was  their 
pleasure,  stoodest  still  with  sailor-hive  patience.  Thy  course 
was  natural,  not  forced,  as  in  a  hot-bed;  nor  didst  thou  go 
poisoning^  the  breath  of  ocean  with  sulphureous  smoke — a 
great  sea-chimera,  chimneying  and  furnacirtg  the  deep;  or 
liker  to  that  fire-god  parching  up  Scamander. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  195 

Can  I  forgot  thy  honest,  yet  slender  crew,  with  their  coy, 
reluctant  responses  (yet  to  the  suppression  of  anything  like 
contempt)  to  the  raw  questions  which  we  of  (he  sjreat  city 
would  be  ever  mid  ;iuou  putting  to  them,  as  to  the  uses  of  this 
or  that  strange  naval  implement  I  'Specially  can  I  forget  thee, 
thou  happy  medium,  thou  shade  of  refuge  between  us  and 
them,  conciliating  interpreter  of  their  skill  to  our  simplicity, 
comfortable  ambassador  between  sea  and  land  ! — whose  sailor- 
trousers  did  not  more  convincingly  assure  thee  to  be  an 
adopted  denizen  of  the  former,  than  thy  white  rap,  and  whiter 
apron  over  them,  with  thy  neat-figured  practice  in  thy  culinary 
vocation,  bespoke  thee  to  have  been  of  inland  nurture  hereto- 
fore— a  master  cook  of  Eastcheap  I  How  busily  didst  thou 
ply  thy  multifarious  occupation,  cook,  mariner,  attendant, 
chamberlain  :  here,  there,  like  another  Ariel,  flaming  at  once 
about  all  parts  of  the  deck,  yet  with  kindlier  ministrations — ■ 
not  to  assist  the  tempest,  but,  as  if  touched  with  a  kindred 
sense  of  our  infirmities,  to  sooth  the  qualms  which  that  un- 
tried motion  might  haply  raise  in  our  crude  land-fancies. 
And  when  the  o'er-washing  billows  drove  us  below  deck,  (for 
it  was  far  gone  in  October,  and  we  had  stiff  and  blowing 
weather,)  how  did  thy  officious  ministering,  still  catering  for 
our  comfort,  with  cards  and  cordials,  and  thy  more  cordial 
conversation,  alleviate  the  closeness  and  the  confinement  of 
thy  else  (truth  to  say)  not  very  savoury,  nor  very  inviting, 
little  cabin  ! 

With  these  additaments  to  boot,  we  had  on  board  a  fellow- 
passenger,  whose  discourse  in  verity  might  have  beguiled  a 
longer  voyage  than  we  meditated,  and  have  made  mirth  and 
wontler  abound  as  far  as  the  Azores.  He  was  a  dark,  Span- 
lsh-complexioned  young  man,  remarkably  handsome,  with  an 
officer-Tike  assurance,  and  an  insuppressible  volubility  uf  as- 
sertion. He  was,  in  fact,  the  greatest  liar  I  had  met  with 
then,  or  since.  He  was  none  of  your  hesitating,  half  story- 
tellers (a  most  painful  description  of  mortals)  who  go  on 
sounding  your  belief,  and  only  giving  you  as  much  as  they 
see  you  can  swallow  at  a  time — the  nibbling  pickpockets  of 
your  patience — but  one  who  committed  downright,  daylight 
depredatidhs  upon  his  neighbour's  faith.  He  did  not  stand 
shivering  upon  the  brink,  but  was  a  hearty,  thorough-paced 
liar,  and  plunged  at  once  into  the  depths  of  your  credulity. 
I  partly  believe  he  made  pretty  sure  of  his  company.  Mot 
many  rich,  not  many  wise,  or  learned,  composed  at  that  time 
the  common  stowage  of  a  Margate  packet.  We  were.  I  am 
afraid,  a  set  of  as  unseasoned  Londoners  (let  our  enemies 
give  it  a  worse  name)  as  Aldermanbury  or  "VYatling-street  at 

12 


196  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

that  time  of  day  could  have  supplied.  There  might  be  an 
exception  or  two  among  us,  but  1  scorn  to  make  any  invidious 
distinctions  among  such  a  jolly,  companionable  ship's  com- 
pany as  those  were  whom  I  sailed  with.  Something,  too, 
must  be  conceded  to  the  genius  loci.  Had  the  confident 
fellow  told  us  half  the  legends  on  land  which  he  favoured  us 
with  on  the  other  element,  I  flatter  myself  the  good  sense  of 
most  of  us  would  have  revolted.  But  we  were  in  a  new 
world,  with  everything  unfamiliar  about  us,  and  the  time  and 
place  disposed  us  to  the  reception  of  any  prodigious  marvel 
whatsoever.  Time  has  obliterated  from  my  memory  much  of 
his  wild  fablings  ;  and  the  rest  would  appear  but  dull,  as  writ- 
ten, and  to  be  read  on  shore.  He  had  been  aid-de-camp 
(among  other  rare  accidents  and  fortunes)  to  a  Persian  prince, 
and  at  one  blow  had  stricken  off  the  head  of  the  King  of 
Carimania  on  horseback.  He,  of  course,  married  the  prince's 
daughter.  I  forget  what  unlucky  turn  in  the  politics  of  that 
court,  combining  with  the  loss  of  his  consort,  was  the  reason 
of  his  quitting  Persia ;  but,  with  the  rapidity  of  a  magician, 
he  transported  himself,  along  with  his  hearers,  back  to  Eng- 
land, where  we  still  found  him  in  the  confidence  of  great  la- 
dies. There  was  some  story  of  a  princess — Elizabeth,  if  I 
remember — having  intrusted  to  his  care  an  extraordinary  cas- 
ket of  jewels,  upon  some  extraordinary  occasion — but,  as  I 
am  not  certain  of  the  name  or  circumstance  at  this  distance 
of  time,  I  must  leave  it  to  the  royal  daughters  of  England  to 
settle  the  honour  among  themselves  in  private.  I  cannot  call 
to  mind  half  his  pleasant  wonders  ;  but  I  perfectly  remember, 
that  in  the  course  of  his  travels  he  had  seen  a  phenix  ;  and 
he  obligingly  undeceived  us  of  the  vulgar  error  that  there  is 
but  one  of  that  species  at  a  time,  assuring  us  that  they  were 
not  uncommon  in  some  parts  of  Upper  Egypt.  Hitherto  he 
had  found  the  most  implicit  listeners.  His  dreaming  fancies 
had  transported  us  beyond  the  "  ignorant  present."  But  when 
(still  hardying  more  and  more  in  his  triumphs  over  our  sim- 
plicity) he  went  on  to  aflirm  that  he  had  actually  sailed 
through  the  legs  of  the  Colossus  at  Rhodes,  it  really  became 
necessary  to  make  a  stand.  And  heir  I  must  do  justice  to 
the  good  sense  and  intrepidity  of  one  of  our  party,  a  youth, 
that  had  hitherto  been  one  of  his  most  deferential  auditors, 
who,  from  his  recent  reading,  made  bold  to  assure  the  gentle- 
man that  there  must  be  some  mistake,  ;is  "  the  Colossus  in 
question  had  been  destroyed  long  since  ;"  to  whose  opinion, 
delivered  with  all  modesty,  our  hero  was  obliging  enough  to 
concede  thus  much,  that  "  the  figure  was  indeed  a  little  dam- 
aged."    This  was  the  only   opposition  he  met  with,  and  it 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  107 

did  not  at  all  seem  to  stagger  him,  for  he  proceeded  with  his 
fables,  -which  the  same  youth  appeared  to  swallow  with  still 
more  complacency  than  ever — confirmed,  as  it  were,  by  the 
extreme  candour  of  that  concession.  With  these  prodigies 
he  wheedled  us  on  till  we  came  in  sight  of  the  Reculvers, 
which  one  of  our  own  company  (having  been  the  voyage  be- 
fore) immediately  recognising,  and  pointing  out  to  us,  was 
considered  by  us  as  no  ordinary  seaman. 

All  this  time  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  deck  quite  a  different 
character.  It  was  a  lad,  apparently  very  poor,  very  infirm, 
and  very  patient.  His  eye  was  ever  on  the  sea,  with  a  smile  ; 
and,  if  he  caught  now  and  then  some  snatches  of  these  wild 
legends,  it  was  by  accident,  and  they  seemed  not  to  concern 
him.  The  waves  to  him  whispered  more  pleasant  stories. 
He  was  as  one,  being  with  us,  but  not  of  us.  He  heard  the 
bell  of  dinner  ring  without  stirring  ;  and  whe?  some  of  us 
pulled  out  our  private  stores — our  cold  meat  and  our  salads 
— he  produced  none,  and  seemed  to  want  none.  Only  a  sol- 
itary biscuit  he  had  laid  in  ;  provision  for  the  one  or  two  days 
and  nights  to  which  these  vessels  then  were  oftentimes 
obliged  to  prolong  their  voyage.  Upon  a  nearer  acquaintance 
with  him,  which  he  seemed  neither  to  court  nor  decline,  we 
learned  that  he  was  going  to  Margate,  with  the  hope  of  being 
admitted  into  the  infirmary  there  for  sea-bathing.  His  dis- 
ease was  a  scrofula,  which  appeared  to  have  eaten  all  over 
him.  He  expressed  great  hopes  of  a  cure  ;  and  when  we 
asked  him  whether  he  had  any  friends  where  he  was  going, 
he  replied,  "  he  had  no  friends. " 

These  pleasant,  and  some  mournful  passages  with  the  first 
sight  of  the  sea,  co-operating  with  youth,  and  a  sense  of  holy- 
days,  and  out-of-door  adventure,  to  me  that  had  been  pent  up 
in  populous  cities  for  many  months  before — have  left  upon  my 
mind  the  fragrance  as  of  summer  days  gone  by,  bequeathing 
nothing  but  their  remembrance  for  cold  and  wintry  hours  to 
chew  upon. 

Will  it  be  thought  a  digression  (it  may  spare  some  unwel- 
come comparisons)  if  I  endeavour  to  account  for  the  dissatis- 
faction which  I  have  heard  so  many  persons  confess  to  have 
felt  (as  I  did  myself  feel  in  part  on  this  occasion)  at  the  sight 
of  the  sea  for  the  first  time?  I  think  the  reason  usually  given 
— referring  to  the  incapacity  of  actual  objects  for  satisfying 
our  preconceptions  of  them — scarcely  goes  deep  enough  into 
the  question.  Let  the  same  person  see  a  lion,  an  elephant,  a 
mountain,  for  the  first  time  in  his  lite,  and  he  shall  perhaps 
feel  himself  a  little  mortified.  The  things  do  not  fill  up  that 
space  which  the  idea  of  them  seemed  to  take  up  in  his  mind. 
17* 


198  .  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

But  they  have  still  a  correspondency  to  his  first  notion,  and  in 
time  grow  up  to  it,  so  as  to  produce  a  very  similar  impres- 
sion :  enlarging  themselves  (if  I  may  say  so)  upon  familiarity. 
But  the  sea  remains  a  disappointment.  Is  it  not,  that  in  the 
latter  we  had  expected  to  behold,  (absurdly,  I  grant,  but,  I  am 
afraid,  by  the  law  of  imagination  unavoidably,)  not  a  definite 
object,  as  those  wild  beasts,  or  that  mountain  compassable  by 
the  eye,  but  all  the  sea  at  once,  the  commensurate  antago- 
nist of  the  earth  !  I  do  not  say  we  tell  ourselves  so 
much,  but  the  craving  of  the  mind  is  to  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less.  I  will  suppose  the  case  of  a  young  person  of 
fifteen  (as  I  then  was)  knowing  nothing  of  the  sea  but  from 
description.  He  comes  to  it  for  the  first  time — all  that  he  has 
been  reading  of  it  all  his  life,  and  that  the  most  enthusiastic 
part  of  life — all  he  has  gathered  from  narratives  of  wandering 
seamen  ;  what  he  has  gained  from  true  voyages,  and  what  he 
cherishes  as  credulously  from  romance  and  poetry  ;  crowding 
their  images,  and  exacting  strange  tributes  from  expectation. 
He  thinks  of  the  great  deep,  and  of  those  who  go  down  unto 
it ;  of  its  thousand  isles,  and  of  the  vast  continents  it  washes  , 
of  its  receiving  the  mighty  Plate,  or  Orellana,  into  ks  bosom, 
without  disturbance  or  sense  of  augmentation ;  of  Biscay 
swells,  and  the  mariner 

"  For  many  a  day,  and  many  a  dreadful  night, 
Incessant  labouring  round  the  stormy  cape  ;" 

of  fatal  rocks,  and  the  "  still-vexed  Bermoothes  ;"  of  great  whirl- 
pools, and  the  waterspout ;  of  sunken  ships,  and  sumless 
treasures  swallowed  up  in  the  unrestoring  depths  ;  of  fishes 
and  quaint  monsters,  to  which  all  that  is  terrible  on  earth — 

"  Be  but  as  buggs  to  frighten  babes  withal, 

Compared  with  the  creatures  in  the  sea's  entral ;" 

of  naked  savages  and  Juan  Fernandez  ;  of  pearls  and  shells  ; 
of  coral  beds,  and  of  enchanted  isles  ;  of  mermaids'  grots — 

I  do  not  assert  that  in  sober  earnest  he  expects  to  be  shown 
all  these  wonders  at  once,  but  he  is  under  the  tyranny  of  a 
mighty  faculty,  which  haunts  him  with  confused  hints  and 
shadows  of  all  these;  and  when  the  actual  object  opens  first 
upon  him,  seen  (in  tame  weather,  too,  most  likely)  from  our 
unroinantic  coasts — a  speck,  a  slip  of  seawater,  as  it  shows  to 
him  — what  can  it  prove  but  a  very  unsatisfying  and  even 
diminutive  entertainment?  Or  if  In-  has  come  tit  it  from  the 
mouth  of  a  river,  was  it  much  more  than  the  river  widening? 
and,  even  out  of  sight  of  land,  what  had  he  but  a  flat  watery 
horizon  about  him,  nothing  comparable  to  the  vast  o'er-curtain- 
ing  sky,  his  familiar  object,  seen  daily  without  dread  or  amaze- 


fiBSAYS    OF    EL1A.  199 

ment?     Who,  in  similar  circumstances,  has  not  been  tempted 
to  exclaim  with  Charoba,  in  the  poem  of  Gebir — 

"  Is  this  the  mighty  ocean  I  is  this  all  ?" 

I  love  town  or  country  ;  but  this  detestable  Cinque  Port  is 
neither.  I  hate  these  scrubbed  shoots,  thrustingout  their  starved 
foliage  from  between  the  horrid  fissures  of  dusty  innutritions 
rocks  ;  which  the  amateur  calls  "  verdure  to  the  edge  of  the 
sea."  I  require  woods,  and  they  show  me  stunted  coppices. 
I  cry  out  for  the  water-brooks,  and  pant  fur  fresh  streams  and 
inland  murmurs.  I  cannot  stand  all  day  on  the  naked  beach, 
watching  the  capricious  hues  of  the  sea,  shifting  like  the 
colours  of  a  dying  mullet.  I  am  tired  of  looking  out  at  the 
windows  of  this  island-prison.  I  would  fain  retire  into  the 
interior  of  my  cage.  While  I  gaze  upon  the  sea,  I  want  to  be 
on  it,  over  it,  across  it.  It  binds  me  in  with  chains,  as  of  iron. 
My  thoughts  are  abroad.  I  should  not  so  feel  in  Staffordshire. 
There  is  no  home  for  me  here.  There  is  no  sense  of  home  at 
Hastings.  It  is  a  place  of  fugitive  resort,  a  heterogeneous  as- 
semblage of  sea-mews  and  stock-brokers,  Amphitrites  of  the 
town,  and  misses  that  coquet  with  the  ocean.  If  it  were  what  it 
was  in  its  primitive  shape,  and  what  it  ought  to  have  remained,  a 
fair  honest  fishing-town,  and  no  more,  it  were  something — with 
a  few  straggling  fishermen's  huts  scattered  about,  artless  as  its 
cliffs,  and  with  their  materials  filched  from  them,  it  were 
something.  I  could  abide  to  dwell  with  Meschek;  to  assort 
with  fisher-swains  and  smugglers.  There  are,  or  I  dream 
there  are,  many  of  this  latter  occupation  here.  Their  faces 
become  the  place.  I  like  a  smuggler.  He  is  the  only  honest 
thief.  He  robs  nothing  but  the  revenue — an  abstraction  I  never 
greatly  cared  about.  1  could  go  out  with  them  in  their  mackerel 
boats,  or  about  their  ostensible  business,  with  some  satisfac- 
tion. I  can  even  tolerate  those  poor  victims  to  monotony, 
who  from  day  to  day  pace  along  the  beach,  in  endless  progress 
and  recurrence,  to  watch  their  illicit  countrymen — townsfolk  or 
brethren  perchance — whistling  to  the  sheathing  and  unsheath- 
ing of  their  cutlasses,  (their  only  solace,)  who  under  the  mild 
name  of  preventive  service  keep  up  a  legitimated  civil  war- 
fare in  the  deplorable  absence  of  a  foreign  one,  to  show  their 
detestation  of  run  hollands,  and  zeal  for  old  England.  But  it 
is  the  visitants  from  town,  that  come  here  to  sai/  that,  they 
have  been  here,  with  no  more  relish  of  the  sea  than  a  pond 
perch  or  a  dace  might  be  supposed  to  have,  that  me  my  aver- 
sion. I  feel  like  a  foolish  dace  in  these  regions,  and  have  as 
little  toleration  for  myself  here  as  for  them.  What  can  they 
want  here  ?    If  they  had  a  true  relish  of  the  ocean,  why  have 


200  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

tliey  brought  all  this  land-luggage  with  them  ?  or  why  pitcli 
their  civilized  tents  in  the  desert?  What  mean  these  scanty 
book-rooms — marine  libraries,  as  they  entitle  them — if  the 
sea  were,  as  they  would  have  us  believe,  a  book  "  to  read 
strange  matter  in?''  what  are  their  foolish  concert-rooms,  if 
they  come,  as  they  would  fain  be  thought  to  do,  to  listen  to 
the  music  of  the  waves  1  All  is  false  and  hollow  pretension. 
They  come  because  it  is  the  fashion,  and  to  spoil  the  nature 
of  the  place.  They  are  mostly,  as  I  have  said,  stockbrokers  ; 
but  I  have  watched  the  better  sort  of  them — now  and  then,  an 
honest  citizen,  (of  the  old  stamp,)  in  the  simplicity  of  his 
heart,  shall  bring  down  his  wife  and  daughters  to  taste  the 
sea-breezes.  I  always  know  the  date  of  their  arrival.  It  is 
easy  to  see  it  in  their  countenance.  A  day  or  two  they  go  wan- 
dering on  the  shingles,  picking  up  cockle-shells,  and  thinking 
them  great  things  ;  but,  in  a  poor  week,  imagination  slackens: 
they  begin  to  discover  that  cockles  produce  no  pearls,  and 
then — oh  then ! — if  I  could  interpret  for  the  pretty  creatures 
(I  know  they  have  not  the  courage  to  confess  it  themselves) 
how  gladly  would  they  exchange  their  seaside  rambles  for  a 
Sunday  walk  on  the  greensward  of  their  accustomed  Twick- 
enham meadows  ! 

I  would  ask  of  one  of  these  sea-charmed  emigrants,  who 
think  they  truely  love  the  sea,  with  its  wild  usages,  what 
would  their  feelings  be,  if  some  of  the  unsophisticated  abori- 
gines of  this  place,  encouraged  by  their  courteous  questionings 
here,  should  venture,  on  the  faith  of  such  assured  sympathy 
between  them,  to  return  the  visit,  and  come  up  to  see — Lon- 
don. I  must  imagine  them  with  their  fishing-tackle  on  their 
back,  as  we  carry  our  town  necessaries.  What  a  sensation 
would  it  cause  in  Lothbury  ?  What  vehement  laughter  would 
it  not  excite  among 

"  The  daughters  of  Cheapside,  and  wives  of  Lombard-street." 

I  am  sure  that  no  town-bred  or  inland-born  subjects  can 
feel  their  true  and  natural  nourishment  at  these  sea-places. 
Nature,  where  she  does  not  mean  us  for  mariners  and  vaga- 
bonds, bids  us  stay  at  home.  The  salt  foam  seems  to  nourish 
a  spleen.  1  am  not  half  so  good-natured  as  by  the  milder 
waters  of  my  natural  river.  1  would  exchange  these  sea-gulls 
for  swans,  and  scud  a  swallow  for  ever  about  the  banks  of 
Thamesis. 


ZSSaYS   of  elia.  201 


THE  CONVALESCE VI . 

A  pretty  severe  fit  of  indisposition  which,  under  the  name 
of  a  nervous  fever,  has  made  a  prisoner  of  me  for  some  weeks 
past,  and  is  but  slowly  leaving  me,  has  reduced  me  to  an  in- 
capacity of  reflecting  upon  any  topic  foreign  to  itself.  Ex- 
pect no  r_2althy  conclusions  from  me  this  month,  reader ;  1 
can  oiler  7011  only  sick  men's  dreams. 

And  tr-.-ly  the  whole  state  of  sickness  is  such  ;  for  what 
else  is  it  but  a  magnificent  dream  for  a  man  to  lie  abed,  and 
draw  daylight  curtains  about  him  ;  and,  shutting  out  the  sun, 
to  induce  a  total  oblivion  of  all  the  works  which  are  going  on 
under  it  ?  To  become  insensible  to  all  the  operations  of  life, 
except  the  beatings  of  one  feeble  pulse  ? 

If  there  be  a  regal  solitude,  it  is  a  sick-bed.  How  the  pa- 
tient lords  it  there  ;  what  caprices  he  acts  without  control  ! 
how  kinglike  he  sways  his  pillow — tumbling,  and  tossing, 
and  shifting,  and  lowering,  and  thumping,  and  flatting,  and 
moulding  it  to  the  ever-varying  requisitions  of  his  throbbing 
temples. 

He  changes  aides  oftener  than  a  politician.  Now  he  lies 
full  length,  then  half  length,  obliquely,  transversely,  head  and 
feel  quite  across  the  bed  ;  and  none  accuses  him  of  tergiver- 
sation. Within  the  four  curtains  he  is  absolute.  They  are 
his  Mare  Clausum. 

How  sickness  enlarges  the  dimensions  of  a  man's  self  to 
himself!  he  is  his  own  exclusive  object.  Supreme  selfish- 
ness is  inculcated  upon  him  as  bis  only  duly.  'Tis  the  two 
tables  of  the  law  to  lum.  He  has  nothing  to  think  of  but  how 
lo  get  well.  What  passes  out  of  doors,  or  within  them,  so  he 
hear  not  the  jarring  of  them,  affects  him  not. 

A  little  while  ago  he  was  greatly  concerned  in  the  event  of 
a  lawsuit,  which  was  to  be  the  making  or  the  marring  of  his 
dearest  friend.  He  was  to  be  seen  trudging  about  upon  this 
man's  errand  to  fifty  quarters  of  the  town  at  once,  jogging  this 
witness,  refreshing  that  solicitor.  The  cause  was  to  come 
on  yesterday.  He  is  absolutely  as  indifferent  to  the  decision, 
as  if  it  were  a  question  to  be  tried  at  Peking.  Peradventun  , 
from  some  whispering  going  on  about  the  house,  not  intended 
for  his  hearing,  he  picks  up  enough  to  make  him  understand 
that  things  went  cross-grained  in  the  court  yesterday,  and  his 
friend  is  ruined.     But  the  word  ••friend"  and  the  word  "ruin" 


202  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

disturb  him  no  more  than  so  much  jargon.  He  is  not  to  think 
of  anything  but  how  to  get  better. 

What  a  world  of  foreign  cares  are  merged  in  that  absorb- 
ing consideration  ! 

He  has  put  on  the  strong  armour  of  sickness,  he  is  wrapped 
in  the  callous  hide  of  suffering;  he  keeps  his  sympathy, 
like  some  curious  vintage,  under  trusly  lock  and  key,  for  his 
own  use  only. 

He  lies  pitying  himself,  honing  and  moaning  to  himself; 
he  yearneth  over  himself;  his  bowels  are  even  melted  within 
him,  to  think  what  he  suffers  ;  he  is  not  ashamed  to  weep 
over  himself. 

He  is  for  ever  plotting  how  to  do  some  good  to  himself; 
studying  little  stratagems  and  artificial  alleviations. 

He  makes  the  most  of  himself ;  dividing  himself,  by  an  al- 
lowable fiction,  into  as  many  distinct  individuals  as  he  hath 
sore  and  sorrowing  members.  Sometimes  he  meditates — as 
of  a  thing  apart  from  him — upon  his  poor  aching  head,  and 
that  dull  pain  which,  dozing  or  waking,  lay  in  it  all  the  past 
night  like  a  log,  or  palpable  substance  of  pain,  not  to  be  re- 
moved without  opening  the  very  scull,  as  it  seemed,  to  take  it 
thence.  Or  he  pities  his  long,  clammy,  attenuated  fingers. 
He  compassionates  himself  all  over ;  and  his  bed  is  a  very 
discipline  of  humanity  and  tender  heart. 

He  is  his  own  sympathizer  ;  and  instinctively  feels  that 
none  can  so  well  perforin  that  office  for  him.  He  cares  for 
tew  spectators  to  his  tragedy.  Only  that  punctual  face  of  the 
old  nurse  pleases  him,  that  announces  his  broths  and  his  cor- 
dials. He  likes  it  because  it  is  so  unmoved,  and  because  he 
can  pour  forth  his  feverish  ejaculations  before  it  as  unreserv- 
edly as  to  his  bedpost. 

To  the  world's  business  he  is  dead.  He  understands  not 
what  the  callings  and  occupations  of  mortals  are  ;  only  he  has 
a  glimmering  conceit  of  some  such  thing,  when  the  doctor 
makes  his  daily  call :  and  even  in  the  lines  of  that  busy  face 
he  reads  no  multiplicity  of  patients,  but  solely  conceives  of 
himself  as  the  sick  man.  To  what  other  uneasy  couch  the 
good  man  is  hastening,  when  he  slips  out  of  his  chamber, 
folding  up  his  thin  douceur  so  carefully  for  fear  of  rustling — 
is  no  speculation  which  he  can  at  present  entertain.  He  thinks 
only  of  the  regular  return  of  the  same  phenomenon  at  the 
same  hour  to-morrow. 

Household  rumours  touch  him  not.  Some  faint  murmur, 
indicative  of  life  going  on  within  the  house,  sooths  him, 
while  he  knows  not  distinctly  what  it  is.  lie  is  not  to  know 
anything,  not  to  think  of  anything.      Servants  gliding  up  or 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  203 

down  the  distant  staircase,  treading  as  upon  velvet,  gently 
keep  his  ear  awake,  so  long  as  he  troubles  not  himself  further 
than  with  some  feeble  ^ucss  at  their  errands.  Exacter  knowl- 
edge would  be  a  burden  to  him  :  he  can  just  endure  the  pres- 
sure of  conjecture.  He  opens  his  eye  faintly  at  the  dull  stroke 
of  the  milmed  knocker,  and  closes  it  again  without  asking, 
M  Who  was  it?"  He  is  flattered  by  a  general  notion  that  In- 
quiries are  making  after  him.  but  he  cares  not  to  know  the 
name  of  the  inquirer.  In  the  general  stillness  and  awful 
hush  of  the  house,  he  lies  in  state,  and  feels  his  sovereignty. 

To  be  sick  is  to  enjoy  monarchal  prerogatives.  Compare 
the  silent  tread,  and  quiet  ministry,  almost  by  the  eye  only, 
with  which  he  is  served — with  the  careless  demeanour,  the 
unceremonious  goings  in  and  out  (slapping  of  doors,  or  leav- 
ing them  open)  of  the  very  same  attendants,  when  he  is  get- 
ting a  little  better — and  you  will  confess,  that  from  the  bed  of 
sickness  (throne  let  me  rather  call  it)  to  the  elbow-chair  of 
convalescence,  is  a  fall  from  dignity,  amounting  to  a  deposi- 
tion. 

How  convalescence  shrinks  a  man  back  to  his  pristine  stat- 
ure !  where  is  now  the  space  which  he  occupied  so  lately, 
in  his  own,  in  the  family's  eye  ? 

The  scene  of  his  regalities,  his  sick-room,  which  was  his 
presence-chamber,  where  he  lay  and  acted  his  despotic  fan- 
cies—how is  it  reduced  to  a  common  bedroom  !  The  trim- 
ness  of  the  very  bed  has  something  petty  and  unmeaning  about 
it.  It  is  made  every  day.  How  unlike  to  that  wavy,  many-fur- 
rowed, oceanic  surface  which  it  presented  so  short  a  time 
since,  when  to  make  it  was  a  service  not  to  be  thought  of  at 
oftener  than  three  or  four  day  revolutions,  when  the  patient  was 
with  pain  and  grief  to  be  lifted  for  a  little  while  out  of  it,  to 
submit  to  the  encroachments  of  unwelcome  neatness,  and  de- 
cencies which  his  shaken  frame  deprecated;  then  to  be  lifted 
into  it  again,  for  another  three  or  four  days'  respite,  to  flounder 
it  out  of  shape  again,  while  every  fresh  furrow  was  an  his- 
torical record  of  some  shifting  posture,  some  uneasy  turning, 
some  seeking  for  a  little  ease  ;  and  the  shrunken  skin  scarce 
told  a  truer  story  than  the  crumpled  coverlet. 

Hushed  are  those  mysterious  sighs — those  groans — so  much 
more  awful,  while  we  knew  not  from  what  caverns  of  vast 
hidden  suffering  they  proceeded*  The  Lernean  pangs  are 
quenched.  The  riddle  of  sickness  is  solved-;  and  PhiloC' 
tetes  is  become  an  ordinary  personage. 

Perhaps  some  relic  of  the  sick  man's  dream  of  greatness 
survives  in  the  still  lingering  visitations  of  the  medical  at- 
tendant.    But  how  is  he  too  changed  with  everything  else . 


204  ESSAYS    OF    ELiA. 

Can  this  be  he — this  man  of  news — of  chat-— of  anecdote — 
of  everything  but  physic — can  this  be  he,  who  so  lately  came 
between  the  patient  and  his  cruel  enemy,  as  on  some  solemn 
embassy  from  Nature,  erecting  herself  into  a  high  mediating 
party?     Pshaw  1  'tis  some  old  woman. 

Farewell  with  him  all  that  made  sickness  pompous — the 
spell  that  hushed  the  household — the  desert-like  stillness 
felt  throughout  its  inmost  chambers — the  mute  attendance — 
the  inquiry  by  looks — the  still  softer  delicacies  of  self-atten- 
tion— the  sole  and  single  eye  of  distemper  alonely  fixed  upon 
itself — world-thoughts  excluded — the  man  a  world  unto  him- 
self— his  own  theatre — 

"  What  a  speck  is  he  dwindled  into  !" 

In  this  flat  swamp  of  convalescence,  left  by  the  ebb  of 
sickness,  yet  far  enough  from  the  terra  firma  of  established 
health,  your  note,  dear  editor,  reached  me,  requesting— an 
article.  In  Articulo  Mortis,  thought  I ;  but  it  is  something  hard 
— and  the  quibble,  wretched  as  it  was,  relieved  me.  The 
summons,  unseasonable  as  it  appeared,  seemed  to  link  me  on 
again  to  the  petty  businesses  of  life,  which  I  had  lost  sight 
of;  a  gentle  call  to  activity,  however  trivial;  a  wholesome 
weaning  from  that  preposterous  dream  of  self-absorption — the 
puffy  state  of  sickness — in  which  I  confess  to  have  lain  so 
long,  insensible  to  the  magazines  and  monarchies  of  the 
world  alike  ;  to  its  laws,  and  to  its  literature.  The  hypo- 
chondriac flatus  is  subsiding ;  the  acres  which  in  imagina- 
tion I  had  spread  over — for  the  sick  man  swells  in  the  sole 
contemplation  of  his  single  sufferings,  till  he  becomes  a  Ti- 
tyus  to  himself — are  wasting  to  a  span  ;  and  for  the  giant  of 
self-importance  which  I  was  so  lately,  you  have  me  once 
again  in  my  natural  pretensions — the  lean  and  meager  figure 
of  your  insignificant  essayist. 


SANITY  OF  TRUE  GENIUS. 

So  far  from  the  position  holding  true,  that  great  wit  (or 
genius,  in  our  modern  way  of  speaking)  has  a  necessary  al- 
liance with  insanity,  the  greatest  wits,  on  the  contrary,  will 
ever  be  found  to  be  the  sanest  writers.  It  is  impossible  for 
the  mind  to  conceive  of  a  mad  Shak.speare.  The  greatness 
of  wit,  by  which  the  poetic  talent  is  here  chiefly  to  be  under- 


ESSAYS    OF    EUA.  205 

stood,  manifests  itself  in  the  admirable  balance  of  all  the 
faculties.  Madness  is  the  disproportionate  straining  or  ex- 
cess of  any  one  of  them.  "  So  strong  a  wit,"  says  Cowley, 
speaking  of  a  poetical  friend, 

"  Dili  Nature  to  lnrn  U  ■■ 

As  all  things  but  his  judgment  oven 

His  judgment  like  (be  heavenlj  inoim  did  show, 

Tempering  that  mighty  sea  bel<>w." 

The  ground  of  the  mistake  is,  that  men,  finding  in  the  rap- 
tures of  the  higher  poetry  a  condition  of  exaltation  to  which 
they  have  no  parallel  in  their  own  experience,  besides  the 
spurious  resemblance  of  it  in  dreams  and  fevers,  impute  a 
state,  of  dreaminess  and  fever  to  the  poet.  But  the  true  poet 
dreams  being  awake,  lie  is  not  possessed  bv  his  subject, 
but  has  dominion  over  it.  In  the  groves  of  Eden  he  walks 
familiar  as  m  his  native  paths.  lie  ascends  the  empyrean 
heaven,  and  is  not  intoxicated.  He  treads  the  burning  marl 
without  dismay  ;  he  wins  his  flight  without  self-loss  through 
realms  of  chaos  "  and  old  night."  Or  if,  abandoning  himself 
to  that  severer  chaos  of  a  "  human  mind  untuned,"'  he  is  con- 
tent awhile  to  be  mad  with  Lear,  or  to  hate  mankind  (a  sort 
of  madness)  with  Timon,  neither  is  that  madness  nor  tins 
misanthropy  so  unchecked  but  that — never  letting  the  reins 
of  reason  wholly  go,  while  most  he  seems  to  do  so — he  has 
his  better  genius  still  whispering  at  his  ear,  with  the  good 
servant  Kent  suggesting  saner  counsels,  or  wit h  the  honest 
steward  Flavins  recommending  kindlier  resolutions.  Where 
he  seems  most  to  recede  from  humanity,  he  will  be  found  the 
truest  to  it.  From  beyond  the  scope  of  Nature  if  he  summon 
possible  existences,  he  subjugates  them  to  the  law  of  her 
consistency.  He  is  beautifully  loyal  to  that  sovereign  direct- 
ress, even  when  he  appears  most  to  betray  and  desert  her. 
His  ideal  tribes  submit  to  policy  ;  his  very  monsters  are  tamed 
to  his  hand,  even  as  that  wild  sea-brood,  shepherded  bv  Pro- 
teus. He  tames,  and  he  clothes  them  with  attributes  of  flesh 
and  blood,  till  they  wonder  at  themselves,  like  Indian  island- 
ers forced  to  submit  to  European  vesture.  Caliban,  the 
Witches,  are  as  true  to  the  laws  of  their  own  nature  (ours 
with  a  difference)  as  Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Macbeth.  Herein 
the  great  and  the  little  wits  are  difl'erenced  ;  that  if  the  latter 
wander  ever  so  little  from  nature  or  actual  existence,  they 
lose  themselves,  and  their  readers.  Their  phantoms  are 
lawless  ;  their  visions  nightmares.  They  do  not  en  ate, 
which  implies  shaping  and  consistency.  Their  imaginations 
are  not  active — for  to  be  active  is  to  call  something  into  act 
and  form — but  passive,  as  men  in  sick  dreams.  For  the 
18 


206  ESSAYS    OF   ELIA. 

supernatural,  or  something  superadded  to  what  we  know  of 
nature,  they  give  you  the  plainly  non-natural.  And  if  this 
were  all,  and  that  these  mental  hallucinations  were  discover- 
able only  in  the  treatment  of  subjects  out  of  nature,  or  trans- 
cending it,  the  judgment  might  with  some  plea  be  pardoned 
if  it.  ran  riot,  and  a  little  wantonized  :  but  even  in  the  de- 
scribing of  real  and  every-day  life,  that  which  is  before  their 
eyes,  one  of  these  lesser  wits  shall  more  deviate  from  nature 
— show  more  of  that  inconsequence,  which  has  a  natural  al- 
liance with  phrensy — than  a  great  genius  in  his  "  maddest 
fits,"  as  Withers  somewhere  calls  them.  We  appeal  to  any 
one  that  is  acquainted  with  the  common  run  of  Lane's  novels 
— as  they  existed  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  back--those 
scanty  intellectual  viands  of  the  whole  female  reading  public, 
till  a  happier  genius  arose,  and  expelled  for  ever  the  innutri- 
tions phantoms — whether  he  has  not  found  his  brain  more 
"  betossed,"  his  memory  more  puzzled,  his  sense  of  when  and 
where  more  confounded,  among  the  improbable  events,  the 
incoherent  incidents,  the  inconsistent  characters,  or  no-char- 
acters, of  some  third-rate  love  intrigue — where  the  persons 
shall  be  a  Lord  Glendamour  and  a  Miss  Rivers,  and  the  scene 
only  alternate  between  Bath  and  Bond-street — a  more  bewil- 
dering dreaminess  induced  upon  him  than  he  has  felt  wan- 
dering" over  all  the  fairy  grounds  of  Spenser.  In  the  produc- 
tions we  refer  to,  nothing  but.  names  and  places  is  familiar  ; 
the  persons  are  neither  of  this  world  nor  of  any  other  con- 
ceivable one;  an  endless  string  of  activities  without  purpose, 
of  purposes  destitute  of  motive  :  we  meet  phantoms  in  our 
known  walks  ;  fantasques  only  christened.  In  the  poet  we 
have  names  which  announce  fiction  ;  and  we  have  absolutely 
no  place  at  all,  for  the  things  and  persons  of  the  Fairy  Queen 
prate  not  of  their  "  whereabout."  But  in  their  inner  nature, 
and  the  law  of  their  speech  and  actions,  we  are  at  home  and 
upon  acquainted  ground.  The  one  turns  life  into  a  dream ; 
the  other  to  the  wildest  dreams  gives  the  sobrieties  of  every- 
day occurrences.  By  what  subtle  art  of  tracing"  the  mental 
processes  it  is  effected,  we  are  not  philosophers  enough  to  ex- 
plain ;  lint  in  that  wonderful  episode  of  the  cave  of  Mammon, 
in  which  the  money-god  appears  first  in  the  lowest  form  cf 
a  miser,  is  then  a  worker  of  metals,  and  becomes  the  god  of 
all  the  treasures  of  the  world;  and  has  a  daughter,  Ambition, 
before  whom  all  the  world  kneels  for  favours — with  the  Hes- 
perian fruit,  the  waters  of  Tantalus,  with  Pilate  washing  his 
hands  vainly,  but  not  impertinently,  in  the  same  stream — that 
we  should  be  at  one  moment  in  the  cave  of  an  old  hoarder  of 
treasures,  at  the  next  at  the  forge  of  the  Cyclops,  in  a  palace 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  207 

and  yet  in  hell,  all  at  once,  with  the  shifting  mutations  of  the 
most  rambling  dream,  and  our  judgment  yet  all  the  lime 
awake,  and  neither  able  nor  willing  to  detect  the  fallacy — is  a 
proof  of  that  hidden  sanity  which  still  guides  the  poet  in  bis 
widest  seeming-aberrations. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  whole  episode  is  a  copy  of 
the  mind's  conceptions  in  sleep  ;  it  is,  in  some  sort — but  what 
a  copy !  Let  the  most  romantic  of  us,  thai  lias  been  enter- 
tained all  night  with  the  spectacle  of  some  wild  and  magnifi- 
cent vision,  recombine  it  in  the  morning,  and  try  it  by  his  wa- 
king judgment.  That  which  appeared  so  shifting  and  yet  so 
coherent  while  that  faculty  was  passive,  when  it  comes  under 
cool  examination  shall  appear  so  reasonless  and  so  unlinked, 
that  we  are  ashamed  to  have  been  so  deluded  ;  and  to  have 
taken,  though  but  in  sleep,  a  monster  for  a  god.  But  the  tran- 
sitions in  this  episode  are  every  whit  as  violent  as  in  the  most 
extravagant  dream,  and  yet  the  waking  judgment  ratifies  them. 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 

Among  the  deaths  in  our  obituary  for  this  month,  I  observe 
with  concern  "  At  his  cottage  on  the  Bath  road,  Captain  Jack- 
son." The  name  and  attribution  are  common  enough;  but  a 
feeling  like  reproach  persuades  me  that  this  could  have  been 
no  other,  in  fact,  than  my  dear  old  friend,  who  some  five-aml- 
tvventy  years  ago  rented  a  tenement,  which  he  was  pleased  to 
dignify  with  the  appellation  here  used,  about  a  mile  from 
Westboum  Crcen.  Alack,  how  good  men,  and  the  good  turns 
they  do  us,  slide  out  of  memory,  and  are  recalled  but  by  the 
surprise  of  some  such  sad  memento  as  that  which  now  lies 
before  us ! 

He  whom  I  mean  was  a  retired  half-pay  officer,  with  a  wife 
and  two  grown-up  daughters,  whom  he  maintained  with  the 
port  and  notions  of  gentlewomen  upon  that  slender  professional 
allowance.     Comely  girls  they  were  too. 

And  was  I  in  danger  of  forgetting  this  man? — his  cheerful 
suppers — the  noble  tone  of  hospitality,  when  firt!  vou  set 
your  foot  in  the  cottage — the  anxious  ministerings  about  you, 
where  little  or  nothing  (Cod  knows)  was  to  be  ministered. 
Althea's  horn  in  a  poor  platter — the  power  of  self  enchant- 
ment, by  which,  in  his  magnificent  wishes  to  entertain  you, 
he  multiplied  his  means  to  bounties. 


208  ESSAYS  OF  EUA. 

You  saw  with  your  bodily  eyes  indeed  what  seemed  a  bare 
scrag — cold  savings  from  the  foregone  meal — remnant  hardly 
sufficient  to  send  a  mendicant  from  the  door  contented.  But 
in  the  copious  will — the  revelling  imagination  of  your  host — 
the  "  mind,  the  mind,  Master  Shallow,"  whole  beeves  were 
spread  before  you — hecatombs — no  end  appeared  to  the  pro- 
fusion. 

It  was  the  widow's  cruise — the  loaves  and  fishes  ;  carving 
could  not  lessen  nor  helping  diminish  it — the  stamina  were 
left — the  elemental  bone  still  flourished,  divested  of  its  acci- 
dents. 

"  Let  us  live  while  we  can,"  methinks  I  hear  the  open- 
handed  creature  exclaim ;  "while  we  have,  let  us  not  want," 
"here  is  plenty  left  ;"  "want  for  nothing" — with  many  more 
such  hospitable  sayings,  the  spurs  of  appetite,  and  old  con- 
comitants of  smoking  boards  and  feast-oppressed  chargers. 
Then  sliding  a  slender  ratio  of  Single  Gloucester  upon  his 
wife's  plate,  or  the  daughter's,  he  would  convey  the  remanent 
rind  into  his  own,  with  a  merry  quirk  of  "  the  nearer  the  bone," 
&c,  and  declaring  that  he  universally  preferred  the  outside. 
For  we  had  our  table  distinctions,  you  are  to  know,  and  some 
of  us  in  a  manner  sat  above  the  salt.  None  but  his  guest  or 
guests  dreamed  of  tasting  flesh  luxuries  at  night,  the  frag- 
ments were  vere  hospitibus  sacra.  But  of  one  thing  or  another 
there  was  always  enough,  and  leavings  :  only  he  would  some- 
times finish  the  remainder  crust,  to  show  that  he  wished  no 
savings. 

Wine  we  had  none  ;  nor,  except  on  very  rare  occasions, 
spirits ;  but  the  sensation  of  wine  was  there.  Some  thin 
kind  of  ale  I  remember — "  British  beverage,"  he  would  say. 
"  Push  about,  my  boys  ;"  "  Drink  to  your  sweethearts,  girls." 
At  every  meager  draught  a  toast  must  ensue,  or  a  song.  All 
the  forms  of  good  liquor  were  there,  with  none  of  the  effects 
wanting.  Shut  your  eyes,  and  you  would  swear  a  capacious 
bowl  of  punch  was  foaming  in  the  centre,  with  beams  of  gen- 
erous Port  or  Madeira  radiating  to  it  from  each  of  the  table 
corners.  You  got  flustered,  without  knowing  whence  ;  tipsy 
upon  words  ;  and  reeled  under  the  potency  of  his  unperform- 
ing  bacchanalian  encouragements. 

We  had  our  songs — "  Why,  soldiers,  why,"  and  the  "  British 
Grenadiers" — in  which  last  we  were;  all  obliged  to  bear  chorus. 
Both  the  daughters  sang.  Their  proficiency  was  a  nightly 
theme — the  masters  he  had  given  them — the  "  no-expense" 
which  he  spared  to  accomplish  theft  in  a  science  "so  neces- 
sary to  young  women."  But  then — they  could  not  sing  "  with- 
out the  instrument." 


EaSYAS    OF    ELI.V.  209 

Sacred,  and,  by  mc,  never  to  be  violated,  secrets  of  poverty  ! 
Should  I  disclose  your  honest  anus  at  grandeur,  your  make- 
shift efforts  of  magni licence  '/  Sleep,  sh-.  p,  with  all  thy  broken 
kevs,  if  one  of  the  bunch  be  extant  ;  thrummed  by  a  thousand 
ancestral  thumbs ;  dear,  (Stocked  spinet  ef  dearer  Louisa ! 
Without  mention  of  mine,  be  dumb,  thou  thin  accompanier  of 
her  thinner  warble  !  A  veil  be  spread  over  the  dear  delighted 
face  of  the  well-deluded  father,  who  now  haply  listening  to 
cherubic  notes,  scarce  feels  sincerer  pleasure  than  when  slu 
awakened  thy  lime-shaken  chords  responsive  to  the  twitterings 
of  that  slender  image  of  a  voice. 

We  were  not  without  our  literary  talk  either.  It  did  not 
extend  far,  but  as  far  as  it  went  it  was  good.  It  was  bottomed 
well ;  had  good  grounds  to  go  upon.  In  the  cottage  was  a 
room,  which  tradition  authenticated  to  have  been  the  same  in 
which  Glover,  in  his  occasional  retirements,  had  penned  the 
greater  part  of  his  Leonidas.  This  circumstance  was  nightly 
quoted,  though  none  of  the  present  inmates,  that  I  could  dis- 
cover, appeared  ever  to  have  met  with  the  poem  in  question. 
But  that  was  no  matter.  Glover  had  written  there,  and  the 
anecdote  was  pressed  into  the  account  of  the  family  impor- 
tance. It  diffused  a  learned  air  through  the  apartment,  the 
little  side  casement  of  which,  (the  poet's  study  window,)  open- 
ing upon  a  superb  view  as  far  as  the  pretty  spire  of  Harrow, 
over  domains  and  patrimonial  acres,  not  a  rood  nor  square 
yard  whereof  our  host  could  call  his  own,  yet  gave  occasion 
to  an  immoderate  expansion  of — vanity  shall  I  call  it  I — in  his 
bosom,  as  he  showed  them  in  a  glowing  summer  evening.  It 
was  all  his,  he  took  it  all  in,  and  communicated  rich  portions 
of  it  to  his  guests.  It  was  a  part  of  his  largess,  his  hospital- 
ity ;  it  was  going  over  his  grounds  ;  he  was  lord  for  the  time 
of  showing  them,  and  you  the  implicit  lookers-up  to  his  mag- 
nificence. 

He  was  a  juggler,  who  threw  mists  before  your  eyes — you 
had  no  time  to  detect  his  fallacies.  He  would  say  ib  Hand  me 
the  Sliver  sugar-tongs ;"  and  before  you  could  discover  it  was 
a  single  spoon,  and  that  pluh d,  he  would  disturb  and  captivate 
your  imagination  by  a  misnomer  of  "the  urn"'  for  a  teakettle  ; 
or  by  calling  a  homely  bench  a  sofa.  Rich  men  direct  you 
to  their  furniture,  poor  ones  divert  you  from  it ;  he  neither  did 
one  nor  the  other,  but  by  simply  assuming  that  everything  was 
handsome  about  him,  you  were  positively  at  a  demur  what  you 
did,  or  did  not  see,  at  the  cottage.  With  nothing  to  live  on, 
he  seemed  to  live  on  everything.  He  had  a  stock  of  wealth 
in  his  mind ;  not  that  which  is  properly  termed  content,  for 
18* 


210  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

in  truth,  he  was  not  to  be  contained  at  all,  but  overflowed  all 
bounds  by  the  force  of  a  magnificent  self-delusion. 

Enthusiasm  is  catching ;  and  even  his  wife,  a  sober  native 
of  North  Britain,  who  generally  saw  things  more  as  they  were, 
was  not  proof  against  the  continual  collision  of  his  credulity. 
Her  daughters  were  rational  and  discreet  young  women  ;  in 
the  main,  perhaps,  not  insensible  to  their  true  circumstances. 
I  have  „seen  them  assume  a  thoughtful  air  at  times.  But 
such  was  the  preponderating  opulence  of  his  fancy,  that  I  am 
persuaded,  not  for  any  half  hour  together,  did  they  ever  look 
their  own  prospects  fairly  in  the  face.  There  was  no  resist- 
ing the  vortex  of  his  temperament.  His  riotous  imagination 
conjured  up  handsome  settlements  before  their  eyes,  which 
kept  them  up  in  the  eye  of  the  world  too,  and  seem  at  last  to 
have  realized  themselves ;  for  they  both  have  married  since, 
I  am  told,  more  than  respectably. 

It  is  long  since,  and  my  memory  waxes  dim  on  some  sub- 
jects, or  I  should  wish  to  convey  some  notion  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  pleasant  creature  described  the  circumstances 
of  his  own  wedding-day.  I  faintly  remember  something  of  a 
chaise  and  four,  in  which  he  made  his  entry  into  Glasgow 
on  that  morning  to  fetch  the  bride  home,  or  carry  her  thither, 
I  forget  which.  It  so  completely  made  out  the  stanza  of  the 
old  ballad : — 

"  When  we  came  down  through  Glasgow  town, 
We  were  a  comely  sight  to  see  ; 
My  love  was  clad  in  black  velvet, 
And  I  myself  in  cramasie." 

I  suppose  it  was  the  only  occasion  upon  which  his  own 
actual  splendour  at  all  corresponded  with  the  world's  notions 
on  that  subject.  In  homely  cart,  or  travelling  caravan,  by 
whatever  humble  vehicle  they  chanced  to  be  transported  in 
less  prosperous  days,  the  ride  through  Glasgow  came  back 
upon  his  fancy,  not  as  a  humiliating  contrast,  but  as  a  fair  oc- 
casion for  reverting  to  that  one  day's  state.  It  seemed  an 
"  equipage  etern"  from  which  no  power  of  fate  or  fortune, 
once  mounted,  had  power  thereafter  to  dislodge  him. 

There  is  some  merit  in  putting  a  handsome  face  upon  indi- 
gent circumstances.  To  bully  and  swagger  away  the  sense 
of  them  before  strangers  may  not  be  always  discommendable. 
Tibbs  and  Bobadil,  even  when  detected,  have  more  of  our 
admiration  than  contempt.  But  for  a  man  to  put  the  cheat 
upon  himself;  to  play  the  Bobadil  at  home  ;  and,  steeped  in 
poverty  up  to  the  lips,  to  fancy  himself  all  the  while  chin- 
ilccj)  in  riches,  is  a  strain  of  constitutional  philosophy,  and  a 
mastery  over  fortune,  which  was  reserved  for  my  old  friend 
Captain  Jackson. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  211 


THE  SUPERANNUATED  MAN. 

"  Sera  tamen  respexit 
Libertas." 

Virgil. 

"  A  clerk  I  was  in  London  gay." 

O'Keefe. 

If  peradventure,  reader,  it  has  been  thy  lot  to  waste  the 
golden  years  of  thy  life — thy  shining  youth — in  the  irksome 
confinement  of  an  office  ;  to  have  thy  prison  days  prolonged 
through  middle  age  down  to  decrepitude  and  silver  hairs,  with- 
out hope  of  release  or  respite  ;  to  have  lived  to  forget  that 
there  are  such  things  as  holydays,  or  to  remember  them  but  as 
the  prerogatives  of  childhood  ;  then,  and  then  only,  will  you 
be  able  to  appreciate  my  deliverance. 

It  is  now  six-and-thirty  years  since  I  took  my  seat  at  the 
desk  in  Mincing-lane.  Melancholy  was  the  transition  at  four- 
teen from  the  abundant  playtime,  and  the  frequently  interve- 
ning vacations  of  school-days,  to  the  eight,  nine,  and  some- 
times ten  hours'  a  day  attendance  at  a  counting-house.  But 
time  partially  reconciles  us  to  anything.  I  gradually  became 
content — doggedly  contented,  as  wild  animals  in  cages. 

It  is  true  I  had  my  Sundays  to  myself;  but  Sundays,  ad- 
mirable as  the  institution  of  them  is  for  purposes  of  worship, 
are  for  that  very  reason  the  very  worst  adapted  for  days  of  un- 
bending and  recreation.  In  particular,  there  is  a  gloom  for 
me  attendant  upon  a  city  Sunday,  a  weight  in  the  air.  I  miss 
the  cheerful  cries  of  London,  the  music,  and  the  ballad-sing- 
ers-— the  buzz  and  stirring  murmur  of  the  streets.  Those 
eternal  bells  depress  me.  The  closed  shops  repel  me. 
Prints,  pictures,  all  the  glittering  and  endless  succession  of 
knacks  and  gewgaws,  and  ostentatiously  displayed  wares  of 
tradesmen,  which  make  a  week-day  saunter  through  the  less 
busy  parts  of  the  metropolis  so  delightful — are  shut  out.  No 
book-stalls  deliriously  to  idle  over — no  busy  faces  to  recre- 
ate the  idle  man  who  contemplates  them  ever  passing  bv — 
the  very  face  of  business  a  charm  by  contrast  to  his  tempo- 
rary relaxation  from  it.  Nothing  to  be  seen  but  unhappy 
countenances  — or  half  happy  at  best — of  emancipated  'pfren- 
tices  and  little  tradesfolk's,  with  here  and  there  a  servant-maid 
that  has  got  leave  to  go  out,  who,  slaving  all  the  week,  with 


212  ESSAYS    OF    EH  A. 

the  habit  has  lost  almost  the  capacity  of  enjoying  a  free  hour  ; 
and  livelily  expressing  the  hollowness  of  a  day's  pleasuring. 
The  very  strollers  in  the  fields  on  that  day  look  anything  but 
comfortable. 

But  besides  Sundays  I  had  a  day  at  Easter,  and  a  day  at 
Christmas,  with  a  full  week  in  the  summer  to  go  and  air  my- 
self in  my  native  fields  of  Hertfordshire.  This  last  was  a 
great  indulgence  ;  and  the  prospect  of  its  recurrence,  I  believe, 
alone  kept  me  up  through  the  year,  and  made  my  durance 
tolerable.  But  when  the  week  came  round,  did  the  glitter- 
ing phantom  of  the  distance  keep  touch  with  me  1  or  rather 
was  it  not  a  series  of  seven  uneasy  days,  spent  in  restless 
pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  a  wearisome  anxiety  to  find  out  how 
to  make  the  most  of  them  ?  Where  was  the  quiet,  where  the 
promised  rest  ?  Before  I  had  a  taste  of  it,  it  was  vanished. 
I  was  at  the  desk  again,  counting  upon  the  fifty-one  tedious 
weeks  that  must  intervene  before  such  another  snatch  would 
come.  Still  the  prospect  of  its  coming  threw  something  of 
an  illumination  upon  the  darker  side  of  my  captivity.  With- 
out it,  as  I  have  said,  I  could  scarcely  have  sustained  my 
thraldom. 

Independently  of  the  rigours  of  attendance,  I  have  ever 
been  haunted  with  a  sense  (perhaps  a  mere  caprice)  of  inca- 
pacity for  business.  This,  during  my  latter  years,  had  increased 
to  such  a  degree,  that  it  was  visible  in  all  the  lines  of  my  coun- 
tenance. My  health  and  my  good  spirits  flagged.  I  had  per- 
petually a  dread  of  some  crisis,  to  which  I  should  be  found 
unequal.  Besides  my  daylight  servitude,  I  served  over  again 
all  night  in  my  sleep,  and  would  awake  with  terrors  of  imagi- 
nary false  entries,  errors  in  my  accounts,  and  the  like.  I 
was  fifty  years  of  age,  and  no  prospect  of  emancipation  pre- 
sented itself.  I  had  grown  to  my  desk,  as  it  were  ;  and  the 
wood  had  entered  into  my  soul. 

My  fellows  in  the  office  would  sometimes  rally  me  upon 
the  trouble  legible  in  my  countenance  ;  but  I  did  not  know  that 
it  had  raised  the  suspicions  of  any  of  my  employers,  when  on 
the  5th  of  last  month,  a  day  ever  to  be  remembered  by  me, 

L ,  the  junior  partner  in  the  firm,  calling  me  on  one  side, 

directly  taxed  me  with  my  bad  looks,  and  frankly  inquired  the 
cause  of  them.  So  taxed,  I  honestly  made  confession  of  my 
infirmity,  and  added  that  I  was  afraid  I  should  eventually  be 
obliged  to  resign  his  service.  He  spoke  some  words  of 
course  to  hearten  me,  and  there  the  matter  rested.  A  whole 
week  I  remained  labouring  under  the  impression  that  I  had 
acted  imprudently  in  my  disclosure ;  that  I  had  foolishly 
given  a  handle  against  myself,  and  had  been  anticipating  my 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  213 

own  dismissal.  A  week  passed  in  this  manner,  the  most  anx- 
ious one,  I  verity  believe,  in  my  whole  life,  when,  on  the 
evening  of  the  12th  of  April,  just  as  I  was  about  quitting  my 
desk  to  go  home,  (it  might  be  about  eight  o'clock.)  1  received 
an  awful  summons  to  attend  the  presence  of  the  whole  as- 
sembled firm  in  the  formidable  back  parlour.  I  thought,  Now 
my  time  is  surely  come,  1  have  done  for  myself,  I  am  going 

to  be  told  that  they  have  no  longer  occasion  for  me.     L , 

I  could  see,  smiled  at  the  terror  I  was  in,  which  was  a  little 

relief  to  mc,  when,  to  my  utter  astonishment,  H ,  the  eldest 

partner,  began  a  formal  harangue  to  me  on  the  length  of  my 
services,  my  very  meritorious  conduct  during  the  whole  of 
the  time,  (the  deuse,  thought  I,  how  did  he  find  out  that?  I 
protest  I  never  had  the  confidence  to  think  as  much.)  lie 
went  on  to  descant  on  the  expediency  of  retiring  at  a  certain 
time  of  life,  (how  my  heart  panted  !)  and  asking  me  a  few 
questions  as  to  the  amount  of  my  own  property,  of  which 
1  have  a  little,  ended  with  a  proposal,  to  which  his  three  part- 
ners nodded  a  grave  assent,  that  I  should  accept  from  the 
house,  which  1  had  served  so  well,  a  pension  for  life  to  the 
amount  of  two  thirds  of  my  accustomed  salary — a  magnifi- 
cent offer  !  I  do  not  know  what  I  answered  between  surprise 
and  gratitude,  but  it  was  understood  that  I  accepted  their  pro- 
posal, and  I  was  told  that  I  was  free  from  that  hour  to  leave 
their  service.  I  stammered  out  a  bow,  and  at  just  ten  min- 
utes after  eight  I  went  home — for  ever.  This  noble  benefit — 
gratitude  forbids  me  to  conceal  their  names — I  owe  to  the 
kindness  of  the  most  munificent  firm  in  the  world — the  house 
of  Boldero,  Merryweather,  Bosanquet,  and  Lacy. 

Esto  perpetua  .' 

For  the  first  day  or  two  I  felt  stunned,  overwhelmed.  I 
could  only  apprehend  my  felicity  ;  I  was  too  confused  to  taste 
it  sincerely.  I  wandered  about,  thinking  I  was  happy,  and 
knowing  that  I  was  not.  I  was  in  the  condition  of  a  prisoner 
in  the  old  Bastile,  suddenly  let  loose  after  a  forty  years'  con- 
finement. I  could  scarce  trust  myself  with  myself.  It  was 
like  passing  out  of  time  into  eternity — for  it  was  a  sort  of 
eternity  for  a  man  to  have  his  time  all  to  himself.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  more  time  on  my  hands  than  I  could  ever 
manage.  From  a  poor  man,  poor  in  time,  I  was  suddenly 
lifted  up  into  a  vast  revenue  ;  I  could  see  no  end  of  my  pos- 
sessions ;  I  wanted  some  steward,  or  judicious  bailiff,  to  man- 
age my  estates  in  time  for  me.  And  here  let  me  caution 
persons  grown  old  in  active  business,  not  lightly,  nor  without 
weighing  their  own  resources,  to  forego  their  customary  em- 


214  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

ployment  all  at  once,  for  there  may  be  danger  in  it.  I  feel  it 
by  myself,  but  I  know  that  my  resources  are  sufficient;  and 
now  that,  those  first  giddy  raptures  have  subsided,  I  have  a 
quiet  home-feeling  of  the  blessedness  of  my  condition.  I  am 
in  no  hurry.  Having  all  holydays,  I  am  as  though  I  had 
none.  If  time  hung  heavy  upon  me,  I  could  walk  it  away ; 
but  I  do  not  walk  all  day  long,  as  I  used  to  do  in  those  old 
transient  holydays,  thirty  miles  a  day,  to  make  the  most  of 
them.  If  time  were  troublesome,  I  could  read  it  away,  but  I 
do  not  read  in  that  violent  measure  with  which,  having  no 
time  my  own  but  candlelight  time,  I  used  to  weary  out  my 
head  and  eyesight  in  by-gone  winters.  I  walk,  read,  or  scrib- 
ble (as  now)  just  when  the  lit  seizes  me.  I  no  longer  hunt 
after  pleasure  ;  I  let  it  come  to  me.     I  am  like  the  man 

"That's  bom,  and  has  his  years  come  to  him, 
In  some  green  desert." 

"  Years  !"  you  will  say  ;  "  what  is  this  superannuated  sim- 
pleton calculating  upon  1  He  has  already  told  us  he  is  past 
fifty." 

I  have,  indeed,  lived  nominally  fifty  years ;  but  deduct 
out  of  them  the  hours  which  I  have  lived  to  other  people, 
and  not  to  myself,  and  you  will  find  me  still  a  young  fel- 
low. For  that  is  the  only  true  time,  which  a  man  can 
properly  call  his  own,  that  which  he  has  all  to  himself ;  the 
rest,  though  in  some  sense  he  may  be  said  to  live  it,  is  other 
people's  time,  not  his.  The  remnant  of  my  poor  days,  long 
or  short,  is  at  least  multiplied  for  me  threefold.  My  ten  next 
years,  if  1  stretch  so  far,  will  be  as  long  as  any  preceding  thirty. 
'Tis  a  fair  rule-of-three  sum. 

Among  the  strange  fantasies  which  beset  me  at  the  com- 
mencement of  my  freedom,  and  of  which  all  traces  are  not  yet 
gone,  one  was,  that  a  vast  tract  of  time  had  intervened  since 
I  quitted  the  counting-house.  I  could  not  conceive  of  it  as 
an  affair  of  yesterday.  The  partners,  and  the  clerks  with 
whom  I  had  for  so  many  years,  and  for  so  many  hours  in  each 
day  of  the  year,  been  closely  associated — being  suddenly  re- 
moved from  them — they  seemed  as  dead  to  me.  There  is  a 
line  passage  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  this  fancy  in  a 
tragedy  by  Sir  Robert  Howard,  speaking  of  a  friend's  death  : — 

"  'Twas  but,  just  now  lie  went  away  ; 
I  have  not  since  had  time  to  shed  a  tear  ; 
And  yet  the  distance  does  the  same  appear 
As  if  he  had  been  a  thousand  years  from  me. 
Time  takes  no  measure  in  eternity  " 

To  dissipate  this  awkward  feeling,  I  have  been  fain  to  go 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  215 

among  them  once  or  twice  since  ;  to  visit  my  old  desk-fellows 
—  my  co-brethren  of  the  quill— that  I  had  left  below  in  the 
state  militant.  Not  all  the  kindness  with  winch  liny  received 
me  could  quite  restore  tome  that  pleasant  familiarity  which  I 
had  heretofore  enjoyed  among  them.  We  cracked  some  of  our 
old  jokes,  but  methought  they  weiuolfhut  faintly.  My  old  d<  >k, 
the  peg  where  I  hung  my  hat,  were  appropriated  to  another. 
I  knew  it  must  be,  but  1  could  not  take  it  kindly.  D — 1  take 
me,  if  I  did  not  feel  some  remorse — beast,  if  1  had  not  — at 
quitting  my  old  compeers,  the  faithful  partners  of  my  toils  for 
six-aiid-thirty  years,  that  smoothed  for  me  with  their  jokes 
and  conundrums  the  ruggedness  of  my  professional  road. 
Had  it  been  so  rugged,  then,  after  all  ?  or  was  1  a  coward  sim- 
ply ?  Well,  it  is  too  late  to  repent ;  and  I  also  know  that 
these  suggestions  are  a  common  fallacy  of  the  mind  on  such 
occasions.  But  my  heart  smote  me.  I  had  violently  broken 
the  bands  between  us.  It  was  at  least  not  courteous.  I  shall 
be  some  time  before  1  get  quite  reconciled  to  the  separation. 
Farewell,  old  cronies,  yet  not  for  long,  for  again  and  again  I 
will  come  among  ye,  if  I  shall  have  your  leave.     Farewell, 

Ch ,  dry,  sarcastic,  and  friendly!   Do ,  mild,  slow  to 

move,  and  gentlemanly  !  PI ,  officious  to  do  and  to  vol- 
unteer good  services  ! — and  thou,  thou  dreary  pile,  lit  man- 
sion for  a  Gresham  or  a  Whittington  of  old,  stately  house  of 
merchants ;  with  thy  labyrinthine  passages,  and  light-exclu- 
ding, pent-up  offices,  where  candles  for  half  the  year  supplied 
the  place  of  the  sun's  light  ;  unhealthy  contributor  to  my 
weal,  stern  fosterer  of  my  living,  farewell  !  In  thee  remain, 
and  not  in  the  obscure  collection  of  some  wandering  booksel- 
ler, my  "  works  !"  There  let  them  rest,  as  I  do  from  my  la- 
bours, piled  on  thy  massy  shelves,  more  MSS.  in  folio  than 
ever  Aquinas  left,  and  full  as  useful !  My  mantle  I  bequeath 
among  ye. 

A  fortnight  has  passed  since  the  date  of  mv  first  communi- 
cation. At  that  period  1  was  approaching  to  tranquillity,  but 
had  not  reached  it.  I  boasted  of  a  calm  indeed,  but  it  was 
comparative  only.  Something  of  the  fust  flutter  was  left ;  an 
unsettling  sense  of  novelty  ;  the  dazzle  to  weak  eyes  of  un- 
accustomed light.  I  missed  my  old  chains,  forsooth,  as  if 
they  had  been  some  necessary  part  of  mv  apparel.  I  was  a 
poor  Carthusian,  from  strict  cellular  discipline  suddenly,  by 
some  revolution,  returned  upon  the  world.  I  am  now  as  if  I 
had  never  Been  other  than  mv  own  master.  It  is  natural  to 
me  to  go  where  I  please,  to  do  what  I  please.  I  find  myself 
at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  day  in  Bond-street,  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  been  sauntering  there  at  that  very  hour  for 


216  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

years  past.  I  digress  into  Soho,  to  explore  a  book-stall.  Me- 
thinks  I  have  been  thirty  years  a  collector.  There  is  nothing 
strange  nor  new  in  it.  I  find  myself  before  a  fine  picture  in  a 
morning.  Was  it  ever  otherwise  ?  What  is  become  of  Fish- 
street  Hill?  Where  is  Fenchurch-street  ?  Stones  of  old 
Mincing-lane  which  I  have  worn  with  my  daily  pilgrim- 
age for  six-and-thirty  years,  to  the  footsteps  of  what  toil-worn 
clerk  are  your  everlasting  flints  now  vocal  ?  I  indent  the 
gayer  flags  of  Pall  Mall.  It  is  'change  time,  and  I  am  strangely 
among  the  Elgin  marbles.  It  was  no  hyperbole  when  I  ven- 
tured to  compare  the  change  in  my  condition  to  a  passing  into  an- 
other world.  Time  stands  still  in  a  manner  to  me.  I  have  lost 
all  distinction  of  season.  I  do  not  know  the  day  of  the  week, 
or  of  the  month.  Each  day  used  to  be  individually  felt  by  me 
in  its  reference  to  the  foreign  post-days  ;  in  its  distance  from, 
or  propinquity  to,  the  next  Sunday.  I  had  my  Wednesday  fe-el- 
ings,  my  Saturday  night's  sensations.  The  genius  of  each  day 
was  upon  me  distinctly  during  the  whole  of  it,  affecting  my 
appetite,  spirits,  &c.  The  phantom  of  the  next  day,  with  the 
dreary  five  to  follow,  sat  as  a  load  upon  my  poor  Sabbath 
recreations.  What  charm  has  washed  that  Ethiop  white  ? 
What  is  gone  of  black  Monday?  All  days  are  the  same. 
Sunday  itself — that  unfortunate  failure  of  a  holyday  as  it  too 
often  proved,  what  with  my  sense  of  its  fugitiveness  and  over- 
care  to  get  the  greatest  quantity  of  pleasure  out  of  it — is  melted 
down  into  a  week-day.  I  can  spare  to  go  to  church  now, 
without  grudging  the  huge  cantle  which  it  used  to  seem  to  cut 
out  of  the  holyday.  I  have  time  for  everything.  I  can  visit 
a  sick  friend.  I  can  interrupt  the  man  of  much  occupation 
when  he  is  busiest.  I  can  insult  over  him  with  an  invitation 
to  take  a  day's  pleasure  with  me  to  Windsor  this  fine  May 
morning.  It  is  Lucretian  pleasure  to  behold  the  poor  drudges 
whom  I  have  left  behind  in  the  world,  carking  and  caring; 
like  horses  in  a  mill,  drudging  on  in  the  same  eternal  round — 
and  what  is  it  all  for?  A  man  can  never  have  too  much  time 
to  himself,  nor  too  little  to  do.  Had  I  a  little  son,  I  would 
christen  him  Nothing-to-do  ;  he  should  do  nothing.  Man,  1 
verily  believe,  is  out  of  his  element  as  long  as  he  is  opera- 
tive. I  am  altogether  for  the  life  contemplative.  Will  no 
kindly  earthquake  come  and  swallow  up  those  accursed  cot- 
ton-mills? Take  me  that  lumber  of  a  desk  there,  and  bowl 
it  down 

"  As  low  as  to  the  fiends.* 

I  am  no  longer  ******,  clerk  to  the  firm  of,  &c.     I  am 
Retired  Leisure      I  am  to  be  met  with  in  trim  gardens.     I 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  217 

nm  already  come  to  be  known  by  my  vacant  face  and  careless 
gesture,  perambulating  at  no  fixed  pace,  nor  with  any  settled 
purpose.  I  walk  about ;  not  to  and  from.  They  tell  me  a 
certain  cum  dignitatc  air,  that  has  been  buried  so  long  with  my 
other  good  parts,  has  begun  to  shoot  forth  in  my  person.  I 
grow  into  gentility  perceptibly.  Winn  I  take  up  a  newspaper, 
it  is  to  read  the  state  of  tbe  opera.  Opus  oprratum  est.  I 
have  done  all  that  I  came  into  this  world  to  do.  I  have  worked 
task-work,  and  have  the  rest  of  the  day  to  myself. 


THE  GENTEEL  STYLE  IN  WRITING. 

It  is  an  ordinary  criticism,  that  my  Lord  Shaftesbury  and 
Sir  William  Temple  are  models  of  the  genteel  style  in  wri- 
ting. We  should  prefer  saying — of  the  lordly  and  the  gen- 
tlemanly. Notbing  can  be  more  unlike  than  the  inflated  fini- 
cle  rhapsodies  of  Shaftesbury  and  the  plain  natural  chitchat 
of  Temple.  The  man  of  rank  is  discernible  in  both  writers; 
but  in  the  one  it  is  only  insinuated  gracefully,  in  the  other  it 
stands  out  offensively.  The  peer  seems  to  have  written  with 
his  coronet  on,  and  his  earl's  mantle  before  him ;  the  com- 
moner in  his  elbow-chair  and  Undress.  What  can  be  more 
pleasant  than  the  way  in  which  the  retired  statesman  peeps 
out  in  the  essays,  penned  by  the  latter  in  his  delightful  retreat 
atShene?  They  scent  of  Nimcguen  and  the  Hague.  Scarce 
an  authority  is  quoted  under  an  ambassador.  Don  Francisco 
de  Melo,  a  "  Portugal  Envoy  in  England,"  tells  him  it  was 
frequent  in  his  country  for  men,  spent  with  age  or  other  de- 
cays, so  as  they  could  not  hope  for  above  a  year  or  two  of 
life,  to  ship  themselves  away  in  a  Brazil  fleet,  and  after  their 
arrival  there  to  go  on  a  great  length,  sometimes  of  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  or  more,  by  the  force  of  that  vigour  they  recov- 
ered with  that  remove.  "Whether  such  an  effect  (Temple 
beautifully  adds)  might  grow  from  the  air,  or  the  fruits  of  that 
climate,  or  by  approaching  nearer  the  sun,  which  is  the  foun- 
tain of  light  and  heat,  when  their  natural  heat  was  so  far  de- 
eived  ;  or  whether  the  piecing  out  of  an  old  man's  life 
wire  worth  the  pains;  I  cannot  tell:  perhaps  the  play  is  not 
wortli  the  candle."  Monsieur  Pompone,  "  French  Ambassa- 
dor in  his  (Sir  William's)  time  at  the  Hague,"  certifies  him, 
that  in  his  life  he  had  never  heard  of  any  man  in  France  that 
arrived  at  a  hundred  years  of  age  ;  a  limitation  of  life  which 
19  K 


218  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  old  gentleman  imputes  to  the  excellence  of  their  climate, 
giving  them  such  a  liveliness  of  temper  and  humour,  as  dis- 
poses them  to  more  pleasures  of  all  kinds  than  in  other  coun- 
tries ;  and  moralizes  upon  the  matter  very  sensibly.  The 
"late  Robert  Earl  of  Leicester"  furnishes  him  with  a  story  of 
a  Countess  of  Desmond,  married  out  of  England  in  Edward 
the  Fourth's  time,  and  who  lived  far  in  King  James's  reign. 
The  "  same  noble  person"  gives  him  an  account,  how  such  a 
year,  in  the  same  reign,  there  went  about  the  country  a  set  of 
morrice-dancers,  composed  of  ten  men  who  danced,  a  Maid 
Marian,  and  a  tabor  and  pipe  ;  and  how  these  twelve,  one 
with  another,  made  up  twelve  hundred  years.  "  It  was  nol 
so  much  (says  Temple)  that  so  many  in  one  small  county 
(Herefordshire)  should  live  to  that  age,  as  that  they  should  be 
in  vigour  and  in  humour  to  travel  and  to  dance."  Monsieur 
Zulichem,  one  of  his  "  colleagues  at  the  Hague,"  informs 
him  of  a  cure  for  the  gout ;  which  is  confirmed  by  another 
"  envoy,"  Monsieur  Serinchamps,  in  that  town,  who  had  tried 
it.  Old  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  recommends  to  him  the 
tise  of  hammocks  in  that  complaint ;  having  been  allured  to 
sleep,  while  suffering  under  it  himself,  by  the  "  constant  mo- 
tion or  swinging  of  those  airy  beds."  Count  Egmont,  and 
the  Rhinegrave  who  "  was  killed  last  summer  before  Maest- 
richt,"  impart  to  him  their  experiences. 

But  the  rank  of  the  writer  is  never  more  innocently  dis- 
closed than  where  he  takes  for  granted  the  compliments  paid 
by  foreigners  to  his  fruit-trees.  For  the  taste  and  perfection 
of  what  we  esteem  the  best,  he  can  truly  sav,  that  the  French, 
who  have  eaten  his  peaches  and  grapes  at  Shene  in  no  very 
ill  year,  have  generally  concluded  that  the  last  are  as  good  as 
any  they  have  eaten  in  France  on  this  side  Fontainbleau ; 
and  the  first  as  good  as  any  they  have  eaten  in  Gascony.  Ital- 
ians have  agreed  his  while  figs  to  be  as  good  as  any  of  that 
sort  in  Italy,  which  is  the  earlier  kind  of  white  fig  there ;  for 
in  the  later  kind  and  the  blue,  we  cannot  come  near  the  warm 
climates,  no  more  than  in  the  Frontignac  or  Muscat  grape. 
His  orange-trees,  too,  are  as  large  as  any  he  saw  when  he 
was  young  in  France,  except  those  of  Fontainbleau,  or  what 
lie  has  seen  since  in  the  Low  Countries ;  except  some  very 
old  ones  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's.  Of  grapes  he  had  the 
honour  of  bringing  over  four  sorts  into  England,  which  he 
enumerates,  and  supposes  that  they  are  all  by  this  time  pretty 
common  among  some  gardeners  in  his  neighbourhood,  as  well 
as  several  persons  of  quality  ;  for  he  ever  thought  all  things 
of  this  kind  "  the  commoner  they  are  made  the  better."  The 
^  arden  pedantry  with  which  he  asserts  that  'tis  to  little  pur- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  219 

■ 

pose  to  plant  any  of  the  best  fruits,  as  peaches  or  grape?, 
hardly,  he  doubts,  beyond  Northamptonshire  at  the  farthest 
northwards  ;  and  praises  the  "  Bishop  of  Minister  at  Cosevelt" 
for  attempting  nothing  beyond  cherries  in  that  cold  climate, 
is  equally  pleasant  and  in  character.  "  I  may,  perhaps,"  (he 
thus  ends  his  sweet  Garden  Essay  with  a  passage  worthy  of 
Cowley,)  "be  allowed  to  know  something  of  this  trade,  since 
I  have  so  long  allowed  myself  to  be  good  for  nothing  else, 
which  few  men  will  do,  or  enjoy  their  gardens,  without  often 
looking  abroad  to  see  how  other  matters  play,  what  motions 
in  the  state,  and  what  invitations  they  may  hope  for  into  other 
scenes.  For  my  own  part,  as  the  country  life,  and  this  part 
of  it  more  particularly,  were  the  inclination  of  my  youth 
itself,  so  they  are  the  pleasure  of  my  age  ;  and  I  can  truly 
say  that,  among  many  great  employments  that  have  fallen  to 
my  share,  I  have  never  asked  or  sought  for  any  of  them,  but 
have  often  endeavoured  to  escape  from  them,  into  the  case 
and  freedom  of  a  private  scene,  where  a  man  may  go  his  own 
way  and  his  own  pace,  in  the  common  paths  and  circles  of  life. 
The  measure  of  choosing  well  is  whether  a  man  likes  what 
he  has  chosen,  which,  1  thank  God,  has  befallen  me  ;  and 
though  among  the  follies  of  my  life  building  and  planting 
have  not  been  the  least,  and  have  cost  me  more  than  I  have 
the  confidence  to  own,  yet  they  have  been  fully  recompensed 
by  the  sweetness  and  satisfaction  of  this  retreat,  where,  since 
my  resolution  taken  of  never  entering  again  into  any  public 
employments,  I  have  passed  five  years  without  ever  once  go- 
ing to  town,  though  I  am  almost  in  sight  of  it,  and  have  a 
house  there  always  ready  to  receive  me.  Nor  has  this  been 
any  sort  of  affectation,  as  some  have  thought  it,  but  a  mere 
want  of  desire  or  humour  to  make  so  small  a  remove  ;  for 
when  I  am  in  this  corner,  I  can  truly  say  with  Horace,  Me 
quotics  rejicit,  <Sfc. 

"  '  Me,  when  the  cold  Digentian  stream  revives, 
What  does  my  friend  believe  I  think  or  ask  1 
Let  me  yet  less  possess,  so  I  may  live, 
Whate'er  oflife  remains,  unto  myself. 
May  I  have  books  enough  ;  and  one  year's  store, 
Not  to  depend  upon  each  doubtful  hour: 
This  is  enough  of  mighty  Jove  to  pray, 
Who,  as  he  pleases,  gives  and  takes  away.'  " 

The  writings  of  Temple  are,  in  general,  after  this  easy  Copy. 
On  one  occasion,  indeed,  his  wit,  which  was  mostly  subordi- 
nate to  nature  and  tenderness,  has  seduced  him  into  a  string 
of  felicitous  antitheses;  which,  it  is  obvious  to  remark,  have 
been  a  model  to  Addison  and  succeeding  essayists.      "Who 

K2 


220  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

would  not  be. covetous,  and  with  reason,"  he  says,  "if  health 
could  be  purchased  with  gold  1    who  not  ambitious,  if  it  were 
at  the  command  of  power,  or  restored  by  honour  ?    but,  alas  ! 
a  white  staff  will  not  help  gouty  feet  to  walk  better  than  a 
common  cane ;  nor  a  blue  riband  bind  up  a  wound  so  well  as 
a  fillet.      The  glitter  of  gold,  or  of  diamonds,  will  but  hurt 
sore  eyes  instead  of  curing  them  ;  and  an  aching  head  will  be 
no  more  eased  by  wearing  a  crown  than  a  common  nightcap." 
In  a  far  better  style,  and  more  accordant  with  his  own  hu- 
mour of  plainness,  are  the  concluding  sentences  of  his  "  Dis- 
course upon  Poetry."     Temple  took  a  part  in  the  controversy 
about  the  ancient  and  the  modern  learning ;  and,  with  that 
partiality  so  natural  and  so  graceful  in  an  old  man,  whose 
state  engagements  had  left  him  little  leisure  to  look  into  mod- 
ern productions,  while  his  retirement  gave  him  occasion  to 
look  back  upon  the  classic  studies  of  his  youth — decided  in 
favour  of  the  latter.     "  Certain  it  is,"  he  says,  "  that,  wheth- 
er the  fierceness  of  the  Gothic  humours  or  noise  of  their  per- 
petual wars  frighted  it  away,  or  that  the  unequal  mixture  of 
the  modern  languages  would  not  bear  it — the  great  heights 
and  excellency  both  of  poetry  and  music  fell  with  the  Roman 
learning  and  empire,  and  have  never  since  recovered  the  ad- 
miration and  applauses  that  before  attended  them.     Yet,  such 
as  they  are  among  us,  they  must  be  confessed  to  be  the  soft- 
est and  sweetest,  the  most  general  and  most  innocent  amuse- 
ments of  common  time  and  fife.      They  still  find  room  in  the 
courts  of  princes  and  the  cottages  of  shepherds.     They  serve 
to  revive  and  animate  the  dead  calm  of  poor  and  idle  lives, 
and  to  allay  or  divert  the  violent  passions  and  perturbations  of 
the  greatest  and  the  busiest  men.     And  both  these  effects  are 
of  equal  use  to  human  life;    for  the  mind  of  man  is  like  the 
sea,  which  is  neither  agreeable  to  the  beholder  nor  the  voyager, 
in  a  calm  or  in  a  storm,  but  is  so  to  both  when  a  little  agitated 
by  gentle  gales ;   and  so  the  mind,  when  moved  by  soft  and 
easy  passions  or  affections.      I  know  very  well  that  many 
who  pretend  to  be  wise  by  the  forms  of  being  grave  are  apt 
to  despise  both  poetry  and  music,  as  toys  and  trifles  too  light 
for  the  use  or  entertainment  of  serious  men.     But  whoever 
find  themselves  wholly  insensible  to  their  charms  would,  I 
think,  do  well  to  keep  their  own  counsel,  for  fear  of  reproach- 
ing their  own  temper,  and  bringing  the  goodness  of  their  na- 
tures, if  not  of  their  understandings,   into   question.     While 
this  world  lasts,  I  doubt  not  but  the  pleasure  and  request  of 
these  two  entertainments  will  do  so  too ;  and    happy  those 
that  content  themselves  with  these,  or  any  other  so  easy  and 
so  innocent,  and  do  not  trouble  the  world  or  other  men,  because 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  221 

they  cannot  be  quiet  themselves,  though  nobody  hurts  them." 
"  When  all  is  done,  (he  concludes,)  human  life  is  at  the 
greatest  and  the  best  but  like  a  fro  ward  child,  that  must  be 
played  with  and  humoured  a  little  to  keep  it  quiet,  till  it 
tails  asleep,  and  then  the  care  is  over." 


BARBARA  S 


Ox  the  noon  of  the  14th  of  November,  1743  or  4,  I  forget 

which  it  was,  just  as  the  clock  had  struck  one,  Barbara  S , 

with  her  accustomed  punctuality,  ascended  the  long  rambling 
staircase,  with  awkward  interposed  landing-places,  which  led 
to  the  office,  or  rather  a  sort  of  box  with  a  desk  in  it,  whereat 
sat  the  then  treasurer  of  (what  few  of  our  readers  may  remem- 
ber) the  Old  Bath  Theatre.  All  over  the  island  it  was  the 
custom,  and  remains  so,  I  believe,  to  this  day,  for  the  players 
to  receive  their  weekly  stipend  on  the  Saturday.  It  was  not 
much  that  Barbara  had  to  claim. 

This  little  maid  had  just  entered  her  eleventh  year ;  but 
her  important  station  at  the  theatre,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  with 
the  benefits  which  she  felt  to  accrue  from  her  pious  applica- 
tion of  her  small  earnings,  had  given  an  air  of  womanhood  to 
her  steps  and  to  her  behaviour.  You  would  have  taken  her 
to  be  at  least  five  years  older. 

Till  latterly  she  had  merely  been  employed  in  choruses,  or 
where  children  were  wanted  to  fill  up  the  scene.  But  the 
manager,  observing  a  diligence  and  adroitness  in  her  above 
her  age,  had  for  some  few  months  past  intrusted  to  her  the 
performance  of  whole  parts.  You  may  guess  the  self-conse- 
quence of  the  promoted  Barbara.  She  had  already  drawn 
tears  in  young  Arthur;  had  rallied  Richard  with  infantine 
petulance  in  the  Duke  of  York  ;  and  in  her  turn  had  rebuked 
that  petulance  when  she  was  Prince  of  Wales.  She  would 
have  done  the  elder  child  in  Morton's  pathetic  after-piece  to 
the  life  ;  but  as  yet  the  "  Children  in  the  Wood"  was  not. 

Long  after  this  little  girl  was  grown  an  aged  woman,  I 
have  seen  somo  of  these  small  parts,  each  making  two  or  three 
pages  at  most,  copied  out  in  the  rudest  hand  of  the  then 
prompter,  who  doubtless  transcribed  a  little  more  carefully 
and  fairly  for  the  grown-up  tragedy  ladies  of  the  establish- 
ment. But  such  as  they  were,  blotted  and  scrawled,  as  for  a 
child's  use,  she  kept  them  all ;  and  in  the  zenith  of  her  after 
19* 


222  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

reputation  it  was  a  delightful  sight  to  behold  them  bound  up 
in  costliest  Morocco,  each  single — each  small  part  making  a 
book — with  fine  clasps,  gilt-splashed,  &c.  She  had  conscien- 
tiously kept  them  as  they  had  been  delivered  to  her ;  not  a 
blot  had  been  effaced  or  tampered  with.  They  were  precious 
to  her  for  their  affecting  remembrancings.  They  were  her 
principia,  her  rudiments ;  the  elementary  atoms ;  the  little 
steps  by  which  she  pressed  forward  to  perfection.  "  What," 
she  would  say,  "  could  Indian  rubber  or  a  pumice  stone  have 
done  for  these  darlings  V 

I  am  in  no  hurry  to  begin  my  story — indeed,  1  have  little  or 
none  to  tell — so  I  will  just  mention  an  observation  of  hers 
connected  with  that  interesting  time. 

Not  long  before  she  died  I  had  been  discoursing  with  her 
on  the  quantity  of  real  present  emotion  which  a  great  tragic 
performer  experiences  during  acting.  I  ventured  to  think, 
that  though  in  the  first  instance  such  players  must  have  pos- 
sessed the  feelings  which  they  so  powerfully  called  up  in 
others,  yet  by  frequent  repetition  those  feelings  must  become 
deadened  in  great  measure,  and  the  performer  trust  to  the 
memory  of  past  emotion,  rather  than  express  a  present  one. 
She  indignantly  repelled  the  notion,  that  with  a  truly  great 
tragedian  the  operation  by  which  such  effects  were  produced 
upon  an  audience  could  ever  degrade  itself  into  what  was 
purely  mechanical.  With  much  delicacy  avoiding  to  instance 
in  her  ^//'-experience,  she  told  me,  that  so  long  ago  as  when 
she  used  to  play  the  part  of  the  Little  Son  to  Mrs.  Porter's 
Isabella,  (I  think  it  was,)  when  that  impressive  actress  has 
been  bending  over  her  in  some  heart-rending  colloquy,  she 
has  felt  real  hot  tears  come  trickling  from  her,  which  (to  use 
her  powerful  expression)  have  perfectly  scalded  her  back. 

I  am  not  quite  so  sure  that  it  was  Mrs.  Porter ;  but  it  was 
some  great  actress  of  that  day.  The  name  is  indifferent ; 
but  the  fact  of  the  scalding  tears  I  most  distinctly  remember. 

I  was  always  fond  of  the  society  of  players,  and  am  not  sure 
that  an  impediment  in  my  speech,  (which  certainly  kept  me 
out  of  the  pulpit,)  even  more  than  certain  personal  disqualifi- 
cations, which  are  often  got  over  in  that  profession,  did  not 
prevent  me  at  one  time  of  life  from  adopting  it.  I  have  had 
the  honour  (I  must  ever  call  it)  once  to  have  been  admitted 
to  the  tea-table  of  .Miss  Kelly.  I  have  played  at  serious 
whist  with  Mr.  Liston.  I  have  chatted  with  ever  good-hu- 
moured Mrs.  Charles  Knnble.  1  have  conversed  as  friend 
to  friend  with  her  accomplished  husband.  I  have  been  in- 
dulged with  a  classical  conference  with  Macready ;  and  with 
a  sight  of  the  player-picture  gallery  at  Mr   Mathews's,  when 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  223 

the  kind  owner,  to  remunerate  me  for  my  love  of  the  old  ac- 
tors, (whom  he  loves  so  much,)  went  over  it  with  me,  supply- 
ing to  his  capital  collection  what  alone  the  artist  could  not 
give  them — voice,  and  their  living  motion.  Old  tones,  half 
faded,  of  Dodd,  and  Parsons,  and  Baddeley,  have  lived  again 
for  me  at  his  bidding.  Only  Edwin  he  could  not  restore  to 
me.  1  have  supped  with  ;  but  I  am  growing  a  cox- 
comb. 

As  I  was  about  to  say — at  the  desk  of  the  then  treasurer 
of  the  Old  Bath  Theatre — not  Diamond's — presented  herself 
the  little  Barbara  S . 

The  parents  of  Barbara  had  been  in  reputable  circumstances. 
The  father  had  practised,  I  believe,  as  an  apothecary  in  the 
town.  But  his  practice,  from  causes  which  I  feel  my  own  in- 
firmity too  sensibly  that  way  to  arraign — or  perhaps  from  that 
pure  infelicity  which  accompanies  some  people  in  their  walk 
through  life,  and  which  it  is  impossible  to  lay  at  the  door  ot 
imprudence — was  now  reduced  to  nothing.  They  were,  in 
fact,  in  the  very  teeth  of  starvation,  when  the  manager,  who 
knew  and  respected  them  in  better  days,  took  the  little  Bar- 
bara into  his  company. 

At  the  period  I  commenced  with,  her  slcndei  earnings  were 
the  sole  support  of  the  family,  including  two  younger  sisters. 
I  must  throw  a  veil  over  some  mortifying  circumstances. 
Enough  to  say,  that  her  Saturday's  pittance  was  the  only 
chance  of  a  Sunday's  (generally  their  only)  meal  of  meat. 

One  thing  I  will  only  mention,  that  in  some  child's  part, 
where  in  her  theatrical  character  she  was  to  sup  ofT  a  roast 
fowl,  (oh  joy  to  Barbara  !)  some  comic  actor,  who  was  for  the 
night  caterer  for  this  dainty — in  the  misguided  humour  of  his 
part,  threw  over  the  dish  such  a  quantity  of  salt,  (oh  grief  and 
pain  of  heart  to  Barbara!)  that  when  she  crammed  a  portion 
of  it  into  her  mouth  she  was  obliged  sputteringly  to  reject  it ; 
and  what  with  shame  of  her  ill-acted  part,  and  pain  of  real 
appetite  at  missing  such  a  dainty,  her  little  heart  sobbed  al- 
most to  breaking,  till  a  flood  of  tears,  which  the  well-fed 
spectators  were  totally  unable  to  comprehend,  mercifully  re- 
lieved her. 

This  was  the  little  starved,  meritorious  maid,  who  stood 
before  old  Ravenscroft,  the  treasurer,  for  her  Saturday's  pay- 
ment. 

Ravenscroft  was  a  man,  I  have  heard  many  old  theatrical 
people  besides  herself  say,  of  all  men  least  calculated  for  a 
treasurer.  He  had  no  head  for  accounts,  paid  away  at  ran- 
dom, kept  scarce  any  books,  and  summing  up  at  the  week's 


224  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

end,  if  he  found  himself  a  pound  or  so  deficient,  blessed  him- 
self that  it  was  no  worse. 

Now  Barbara's  weekly  stipend  was  a  bare  half  guinea. 
By  mistake  he  popped  into  her  hand — a  whole  one. 

Barbara  tripped  away. 

She  was  entirely  unconscious  at  first  of  the  mistake  :  God 
knows,  Ravenscroft  would  never  have  discovered  it. 

But  when  she  had  got  down  to  the  first  of  those  uncouth 
landing-places,  she  became  sensible  of  an  unusual  weight  of 
metal  pressing  her  little  hand. 

Now  mark  the  dilemma. 

She  was  by  nature  a  good  girl.  From  her  parents  and 
those  about  her  she  had  imbibed  no  contrary  influence.  But 
then  they  had  taught  her  nothing.  Poor  men's  smoky  cabins 
are  not  always  porticoes  of  moral  philosophy.  This  little 
maid  had  no  instinct  to  evil,  but  then  she  might  be  said  to  have 
no  fixed  principle.  She  had  heard  honesty  commended,  but 
never  dreamed  of  its  application  to  herself.  She  thought  of 
it  as  something  which  concerned  grown-up  people,  men  and 
women.  She  had  never  known  temptation,  or  thought  of  pre- 
paring resistance  against  it. 

Her  first  impulse  was  to  go  back  to  the  old  treasurer,  and 
explain  to  him  his  blunder.  He  was  already  so  confused 
with  age,  besides  a  natural  want  of  punctuality,  that  she  would 
have  had  some  difficulty  in  making  him  understand  it.  She 
saw  that  in  an  instant.  And  then  it  was  such  a  bit  of  money.' 
and  then  the  image  of  a  larger  allowance  of  butcher's  meat  on 
their  table  next  day  came  across  her,  till  her  little  eyes  glis- 
tened and  her  mouth  moistened.  But  then  Mr.  Ravenscroft 
had  always  been  so  good-natured,  had  stood  her  friend  behind 
the  scenes,  and  even  recommended  her  promotion  to  some  of 
her  little  parts.  But  again  the  old  man  was  reputed  to  be 
worth  a  world  of  money.  He  was  supposed  to  have  fifty 
pounds  a  year  clear  of  the  theatre.  And  then  came  staring 
upon  her  the  figures  of  her  little  stockingless  and  shoeless 
sisters.  And  when  she  looked  at  her  own  neat  white  cotton 
stockings,  which  her  situation  at  the  theatre  had  made  it  in- 
dispensable for  her  mother  to  provide  for  her,  with  hard 
straining  and  pinching  from  the  family  stock,  and  thought  how 
glad  she  should  be  to  cover  their  poor  feet  with  the  same — 
and  how  then  they  could  accompany  her  to  rehearsals,  which 
they  had  hitherto  been  precluded  from  doing  by  reason  of 
their  unfashionable  attire — in  these  thoughts  she  reached  the 
second  landing-place — the  second,  I  mean,  from  the  top — for 
there  was  still  another  left  to  traverse. 

Now  virtue  support  Barbara  ! 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  225 

And  that  never-failing  friend  did  step  in — for.it  that  moment 
a  strength  not  her  own,  I  have  heard  her  say,  was  revealed  to 
her — a  reason  above  n  asoning — and  without  her  own  agency, 
as  it  seemed,  (for  she  never  felt  her  feet  to  move,)  she  found 
herself  transported  back  to  the  individual  desk  she  had  just 
quitted,  and  her  hand  in  the  old  hand  of  Kavenseroft,  who  in 
bilence  took  back  the  refunded  treasure,  and  who  had  been 
sitting  (good  man)  insensible  to  the  lapse  of  minutes,  which 
to  her  were  anxious  ages  ;  and  from  that  moment  a  deep 
peace  fell  upon  her  heart,  and  she  knew  the  quality  of  honesty. 

A  year  or  two's  unrepining  application  to  her  profession 
brightened  up  the  feet  and  the  prospects  of  her  little  sisters, 
set  the  whole  family  upon  their  legs  again,  and  released  her 
from  the  difficulty  of  discussing  moral  dogmas  upon  a  landing- 
place. 

1  have  heard  her  say  that  it  was  a  surprise,  not  much 
short  of  mortification  to  her,  to  see  the  coolness  with  which  the 
old  man  pocketed  the  difference,  which  had  caused  her  such 
mortal  throes. 

This  anecdote  of  herself  I  had  in  the  year  1800,  from  the 
mouth  of  the  late  Mrs.  Crawford,*  then  sixty-seven  years  of 
agj&i  (she  died  soon  after;)  and  to  her  struggles  upon  this 
childish  occasion  I  have  sometimes  ventured  to  think  her  in- 
debted for  that  power  of  rending  the  heart  in  the  representa- 
tion of  conflicting  emotions,  for  which  in  after  years  she  was 
considered  as  little  inferior  (if  at  all  so  in  the  part  of  Lady 
Kandolph)  even  to  Mrs.  JSiddons. 


THE  TOMBS  IN  THE  ABBEY. 

IN    A    LETTER    TO    R S ,    ESQ. 

Thoi'gh  in  some  points  of  doctrine,  and  perhaps  of  disci- 
pline, I  am  diffident  of  lending  a  perfect  assent  to  that  church 
which  you  have  so  worthily  historified,  yet  may  the  ill  time 
never  come  to  me  when,  with  a  chilled  heart,  or  a  portion  of 
irreverent  sentiment,  I  shall  enter  her  beautiful  and  time-hal- 
lowed edifices.  Judge,  then,  of  my  mortification  when,  after 
attending  the  choral   anthems  of  last  Wednesday   at  West- 

*  The  maiden  name  of  this  kni.  -        ti'wbichjsne  changed,  by  succes- 

sive marriages,  for  those  of  Dancer,  Barry,  and  Crawford.    She  was  .Mrs. 
Crawford,  and  a  thud  lime  a  widow,  when  1  knew  her. 

K  3 


226  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

minster,  and  being  desirous  of  renewing  my  acquaintance, 
after  lapsed  years,  with  the  tombs  and  antiquities  there,  I 
found  myself  excluded ;  turned  out  like  a  dog,  or  some  pro- 
fane person,  into  the  common  street,  with  feelings  not  very 
congenial  to  the  place,  or  to  the  solemn  service  which  1  had 
been  listening  to.     It  was  a  jar  after  that  music. 

You  had  your  education  at  Westminster ;  and  doubtless 
among  those  dim  aisles  and  cloisters  you  must  have  gathered 
much  of  that  devotional  feeling  in  those  young  years,  on 
which  your  purest  mind  feeds  still — and  may  it  feed  !  The 
antiquarian  spirit,  strong  in  you,  and  gracefully  blending  ever 
with  the  religious,  may  have  been  sown  in  you  among  those 
wrecks  of  splendid  mortality.  You  owe  it  to  the  place  of 
your  education ;  you  owe  it  to  your  learned  fondness  for  the 
architecture  of  your  ancestors ;  you  owe  it  to  the  venerable- 
ness  of  your  ecclesiastical  establishment,  which  is  daily  les- 
sened and  called  in  question  through  these  practices — to  speak 
aloud  your  sense  of  them ;  never  to  desist  raising  your  voice 
against  them,  till  they  be  totally  done  away  with  and  abolished  ; 
till  the  doors  of  Westminster  Abbey  be  no  longer  closed 
against  the  decent,  though  low-in-purse,  enthusiast,  or  blame- 
less devotee,  who  must  commit  an  injury  against  his  family 
economy,  if  he  would  be  indulged  with  a  bare  admission 
within  its  walls.  You  owe  it  to  the  decencies  which  you 
wish  to  see  maintained  in  its  impressive  services,  that  our 
cathedral  be  no  longer  an  object  of  inspection  to  the  poor  at 
those  times  only  in  which  they  must  rob  from  their  attendance 
on  the  worship  every  minute  which  they  can  bestow  upon  the 
fabric.  In  vain  the  public  prints  have  taken  up  this  subject, 
in  vain  such  poor  nameless  writers  as  myself  express  their 
indignation.  A  word  from  you,  sir — a  hint  in  your  journal — 
would  be  sufficient  to  fling  open  the  doors  of  the  beautiful 
temple  again,  as  we  can  remember  them  when  we  were  boys. 
At  that  time  of  life,  what  would  the  imaginative  faculty  (such 
as  it  is)  in  both  of  us  have  suffered,  if  the  entrance  to  so 
much  reflection  had  been  obstructed  by  the  demand  of  so 
much  silver !  If  we  had  scraped  it  up  to  gain  an  occasional 
admission,  (as  we  certainly  should  have  done,)  would  the  sight 
of  those  old  tombs  have  been  as  impressive  to  us  (while  we 
had  been  weighing  -anxiously  prudence  against  sentiment)  as 
when  the  gates  stood  open,  as  those  of  the  adjacent,  park  ;  when 
we  could  walk  in  at  any  time,  as  the  mood  brought  us,  for  a 
shorter  or  longer  time,  as  that  lasted  ?  Is  the  being  shown 
over  a  place  the  same  as  silently  for  ourselves  detecting  the 
genius  of  it?  In  no  part  of  our  beloved  abbey  now  can  a 
person  find  entrance  (out  of  service-time)  under  the  sum  of 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  227 

two  'shillings.      The  rich  and  the  great  will  smile  at  the  anti- 
climax presumed   to  lie  in  these  two  short  words.     But  you 
can  tell  them,  sir,  how  much  quiet  worth,  how  much  capacity 
for  enlarged  feeling,  how  much  taste  and  genius,  may  coexist, 
especially  in  youth,  with  a  purse  incompetent  to  this  demand. 
A  respected  friend  of  ours,  during  his  late  visit  to  the  me- 
tropolis, presented  himself  for  admission  to  St.  Paul's.     At 
the  same  time  a  decently-clothed  man,  with  as  decent  a  wife 
and  child,  were  bargaining  for  the  same  indulgence.     The 
price   was  only  twopence  each   person.     The  poor  but  de- 
cent man  hesitated,  desirous  to  go  in ;   but  there  were  three 
of  them,  and  he  turned  away  reluctantly.      Perhaps  he  wished 
to  have  seen  the  tomb  of  Nelson.     Perhaps  the  interior  of  the 
cathedral  was  his  object.      But,  in  the  state  of  his  finances, 
even  sixpence  might  reasonably  seem  too  much.     Tell  the 
aristocracy  of  the  country  (no  man  can  do  it  more  impressive- 
ly) ;  instruct  them  of  what  value  these  insignificant  pieces  of 
money,  these  minims  to  their  sight,  may  be  to  their  humbler 
brethren.     Shame  these  sellers  out  of  the  Temple.     Stifle  not 
the  suggestions  of  your  better  nature  with  the  pretext  that  an 
indiscriminate  admission  would  expose  the  tombs  to  violation. 
Remember  your  boy-days.     Did  you  ever  see  or  hear  of  a 
mob  in  the  Abbey  while  it  was  free  to  all?     Do  the  rabble 
come  there,  or  trouble  their  heads  about  such  speculations? 
It  is  all  that  you  can  do  to  drive  them  into  your  churches  ; 
they  do  not  voluntarily  offer  themselves.     They  have,  alas ! 
no  passion  for  antiquities  ;  for  tomb  of  king  or  prelate,  sage  or 
poet.      If  they  had,  they  would  be  no  longer  the  rabble. 

For  forty  years  that  I  have  known  the  fabric,  the  only  well- 
attested  charge  of  violation  adduced  has  been — a  ridiculous 
dismemberment  committed  upon  the  effigy  of  that  amiable  spy, 
Major  Andre.  And  is  it  for  this,  the  wanton  mischief  of 
some  schoolboy,  fired,  perhaps,  with  raw  notions  of  transat- 
lantic freedom;  or  the  remote  possibility  of  such  a  mischief 
occurring  again,  so  easily  to  be  prevented  by  stationing  a  con- 
stable within  the  walls  if  the  vergers  are  incompetent  to  the 
duty  ;  is  it  upon  such  wretched  pretences  that  the  people  of 
England  are  made  to  pay  a  new  Peter's  Pence  so  long  abro- 
gated, or  must  content  themselves  with  contemplating  the 
ragged  exterior  of  their  cathedral  ?  The  mischief  was  done 
about  the  time  that  you  were  a  scholar  there.  Do  you  know 
anything  about  the  unfortunate  relic  ? 


228  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


AMICUS  REDIVIVUS. 

"  Where  were  ye,  nymphs,  when  the  remorseless  deep 
Closed  o'er  the  head  of  your  loved  Lycidas  V 

I  do  not  know  when  I  have  experienced  a  stranger  sensa- 
tion than  on  seeing  my  old  friend  G.  D.,  who  had  been  paying 
me  a  morning  visit  a  few  Sundays  back  at  my  cottage  at  Is- 
lington, upon  taking  leave,  instead  of  turning  down  the  right- 
hand  path  by  which  he  had  entered — with  staff  in  hand,  and 
at  noonday,  deliberately  march  right  forward  into  the  midst 
of  the  stream  that  runs  by  us,  and  totally  disappear. 

A  spectacle  like  this  at  dusk  would  have  been  appalling 
enough  ;  but  in  the  broad  open  daylight  to  witness  such  an  un- 
reserved motion  towards  self-destruction  in  a  valued  friend, 
took  from  me  all  power  of  speculation. 

How  I  found  my  feet,  I  know  not.  Consciousness  was 
quite  gone.  Some  spirit,  not  my  own,  whirled  me  to  the  spot. 
I  remember  nothing  but  the  silvery  apparition  of  a  good  white 
head  emerging  ;  nigh  which  a  staff  (the  hand  unseen  that 
wielded  it)  pointed  upwards,  as  feeling  for  the  skies.  In  a 
moment  (if  time  was  in  that  time)  he  was  on  my  shoulders, 
and  I — freighted  with  a  load  more  precious  than  his  who  bore 
Anchises. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  do  justice  to  the  officious  zeal  of 
sundry  passers-by,  who,  albeit  arriving  a  little  too  late  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  honours  of  the  rescue,  in  philanthropic  shoals 
came  thronging  to  communicate  their  advice  as  to  the  recov- 
ery ;  prescribing  variously  the  application,  or  non-application, 
of  salt,  &c,  to  the  person  of  the  patient.  Life,  meanwhile, 
was  ebbing  fast  away,  amid  the  stifle  of  conflicting  judgments, 
when  one,  more  sagacious  than  the  rest,  by  a  bright  thought, 
proposed  sending  for  the  doctor.  Trite  as  the  counsel  was, 
and  impossible,  as  one  should  think,  to  be  missed  on — shall  I 
confess? — in  this  emergency,  it  was  to  me  as  if  an  angel  had 
spoken.  Great  previous  exertions — and  mine  had  not  been 
inconsiderable — are  commonly  followed  by  a  debility  of  pur- 
pose.    This  was  a  moment  o( irresolution. 

MpNoerjXTJS — for  so,  in  default  of  catching  his  true  name,  I 
choose  to  designate  the  medical  gentleman  who  now  appeared 
— is  a  grave,  middle-aged  person,  who,  without  having  studied 
at  the  college,  or  truckled  to  the  pedantry  of  a  diploma,  hath 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  229 

employed  a  great  portion  of  his  valuable  time  in  experimental 
processes  upon  the  bodies  of  unfortunate  fellow-creatures,  in 
whom  the  vital  spark,  to  mere  vulgar  thinking,  would  seem  ex- 
tinet  and  lost  for  ever.  He  omittetli  no  occasion  of  obtruding 
his  services,  from  a  case  of  common  surfe it-sufi'ocation  to  the 
ignobler  obstructions,  sometimes  induced  by  a  too  wilful  appli- 
cation of  the  plant  Cannabis  outwardly.  But  though  he  de- 
clinelh  not  altogether  these  drier  extinctions,  his  occupation 
tendeth,  for  the  most  part,  to  water-practice  ;  for  the  conve- 
nience of  which  he  hath  judiciously  fixed  his  quarters  near  the 
grand  repository  of  the  stream  mentioned,  where,  day  and 
night  ironi  his  little  watch-tower,  at  the  Middkton's  Head,  he 
listeneth  to  detect  the  wrecks  of  drowned  mortality — partly, 
as  he  saith,  to  be  upon  the  spot — and  partly,  because  the  li- 
quids which  he  useth  to  prescribe  to  himself  and  his  patients 
on  these  distressing  occasions,  are  ordinarily  more  conve- 
niently to  be  found  at  these  common  hostelries  than  in  the 
shops  and  vials  of  the  apothecaries.  His  ear  hath  arrived 
to  such  finesse  by  practice,  that  it  is  reported  he  can  distin- 
guish a  plunge  at  a  half  furlong  distance  ;  and  can  tell  it'  it 
be  casual  or  deliberate.  He  weareth  a  medal  suspended  over 
a  suit,  originally  of  a  sad  brown,  but  which,  by  time  and  fre- 
quency of  nightly  divings,  has  been  dinged  into  a  true  profes- 
sional sable.  He  passeth  by  the  name  of  Doctor,  and  is  re- 
markable for  wanting  his  left  eye.  His  remedy,  after  a  suf- 
ficient application  of  warm  blankets,  friction,  &-c,  is  a  simple 
tumbler,  or  more,  of  the  purest  cognac,  with  water,  made  as 
hot  as  the  convalescent  can  bear  it.  Where  he  iindeth,  as  in 
the  case  of  my  friend,  a  squeamish  subject,  he  condescendeth 
to  be  the  taster;  and  showeth,  by  his  own  example,  the  innoc- 
uous nature  of  the  prescription.  Nothing  can  be  more  kind 
or  encouraging  than  this  procedure.  It  addeth  confidence  to 
the  patient,  to  see  his  medical  adviser  go  hand  in  hand  with 
himself  in  the  remedy.  When  the  doctor  swalloweth  his 
own  draught,  what  peevish  invalid  can  refuse  to  pledge  him 
in  the  potion?  In  fine,  Monoculus  is  a  humane,  sensible 
man,  who,  for  a  slender  pittance,  scarce  enough  to  sustain  life, 
is  content  to  wear  it  out  in  the  endeavour  to  save  the  lives  of 
others — his  pretensions  so  moderate,  that  with  difficulty  L 
could  press  a  crown  upon  him  for  the  price  of  restoring  the 
existence  of  such  an  invaluable  creature  to  societv  as  (;.  I). 

It  was  pleasant  to  observe  the  eflcct  of  the  subsiding  alarm 
Uppq  the  nerves  of  the  dear  absentee.  It  seemed  to  have 
given  a  shako  to  memory,  calling  up  notice  after  notice,  of  all 
the  providential  deliverances  he  had  experienced  in  the  course 
of  his  long  and  innocent  life.  Sitting  up  in  mv  couch — my 
20 


230  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

couch  which,  naked  and  void  of  furniture  hitherto,  for  the  sal- 
utary repose  which  it  administered,  shall  be  honoured  with 
costly  valance,  at  some  price,  and  henceforth  be  a  state-bed 
at  Colebrook, — he  discoursed  of  marvellous  escapes — by  care- 
lessness of  nurses — by  pails  of  gelid,  and  kettles  of  the  boil- 
ing element,  in  infancy — by  orchard  pranks,  and  snapping 
twigs,  in  schoolboy  frolics — by  descent  of  tiles  at  Trumping- 
ton,  and  of  heavier  tomes  at  Pembroke — by  studious  watch- 
ings,  inducing  frightful  vigilance — by  want,  and  the  fear  of 
want,  and  all  the  sore  throbbings  of  the  learned  head.  Anon, 
he  would  burst  out  into  little  fragments  of  chanting — of  songs 
long  ago — ends  of  deliverance-hymns,  not  remembered  before 
since  childhood,  but  coming  up  now,  when  his  heart  was 
made  tender  as  a  child's — for  the  tremor  cordis  in  the  retros- 
pect of  a  recent  deliverance,  as  in  a  case  of  impending  dan- 
ger, acting  upon  an  innocent  heart,  will  produce  a  self-tender- 
ness, which  we  should  do  ill  to  christen  cowardice  ;  and 
Shakspeare,  in  the  latter  crisis,  has  made  his  good  Sir  Hugh 
to  remember  the  sitting  by  Babylon,  and  to  mutter  of  shallow 
rivers. 

Waters  of  Sir  Hugh  Middleton — what  a  spark  you  were 
like  to  have  extinguished  for  ever !  Your  salubrious  streams 
to  this  city,  for  now  near  two  centuries,  would  hardly  have 
atoned  for  what  you  were  in  a  moment  washing  away.  Mock- 
ery of  a  river — liquid  artifice — wretched  conduit !  henceforth 
rank  with  canals  and  sluggish  aqueducts.  Was  it  for  this, 
that,  smit  in  boyhood  with  the  explorations  of  that.  Abyssinian 
traveller,  I  paced  the  vales  of  Amwell  to  explore  your  tribu- 
tary springs,  to  trace  your  salutary  waters  sparkling  through 
green  Hertfordshire  and  cultured  Enfield  parks  1  Ye  have 
no  swans — no  naiads — no  river-god — or  did  the  benevolent 
hoary  aspect  of  my  friend  tempt  ye  to  suck  him  in,  that  ye 
also  might  have  the  tutelary  genius  of  your  waters  1 

Had  he  been  drowned  in  Cam  there  would  have  been  some 
consonancy  in  it ;  but  what  willows  had  ye  to  wave  and  rustle 
over  his  moist  sepulture  ? — or,  having  no  name,  besides  that 
unmeaning  assumption  of  eternal  novi/ij,  did  ye  think  to  get 
one  by  the  noble  prize,  and  henceforth  to  be  termed  the 
Stream  Dyerian? 

"  And  could  such  spacious  virtue  find  a  grave 
Beneath  the  iin|>o.siliumrd  bubble  of  a  wave?" 

I  protest,  George,  you  shall  not  venture  out  again — no,  not 
by  daylight — without  a  sufficient  pair  of  spectacles — in  your 
musing  moods  especially.  Your  absence  of  mind  we  have 
borne,  till  your  presence  of  body  came  to  be  called  in  ques- 


ESSAYS    OF    EUA.  231 

tion  by  it.  You  shall  not  go  wandering  into  Euripus  with 
Aristotle,  if  we  can  help  it.  Fy,  man,  to  turn  dipper  at  your 
years,  after  your  many  tracts  in  favour  of  sprinkling  only  ! 

I  have  nothing  but  water  in  my  head  o'nights  since  this 
frightful  accident.  Sometimes  I  am  with  Clarence  in  his 
dream.  At  others,  I  behold  Christian  beginning  to  sink,  and 
crying  out  to  his  good  brother  Hopeful,  (that  is,  to  me,)  "  I 
sink  in  deep  waters  ;  the  billows  go  over  my  head,  all  the 
waves  go  over  me.  Selah."  Then  I  have  before  me  Pali- 
nurus,  just  letting  go  the  steerage.  I  cry  out  too  late  to  save. 
Next  follow — a  mournful  procession — suicidal  faces,  saved 
against  their  wills  from  drowning  ;  dolefully  trailing  a  length 
of  reluctant  gratefulness,  with  ropy  weeds  pendent  from  locks 
of  watchet  hue — constrained  Lazari  —  Pluto's  half-subjects — 
stolen  fees  from  the  grave  — bilking  Charon  of  his  fare.  At 
their  head  Arion — or  is  it  G.  D.  ? — in  his  singing  garments 
marcheth  singly,  with  harp  in  hand,  and  votive  garland,  which 
Machaon  (or  Dr.  Hawes)  snatcheth  straight,  intending  to  sus- 
pend it  to  the  stern  god  of  sea.  Then  follow  dismal  streams 
of  Lethe,  in  which  the  half-drenched  on  earth  are  constrained 
to  drown  downright,  by  wharves  where  Ophelia  twice  acts  her 
muddy  death. 

And,  doubtless,  there  is  some  notice  in  that  invisible  world, 
when  one  of  us  approacheth  (as  my  friend  did  so  lately)  to 
their  inexorable  precincts.  When  a  soul  knocks  once,  twice, 
at  death's  door,  the  sensation  aroused  within  the  palace  must 
be  considerable  ;  anil  the  grim  feature,  by  modern  science  so 
often  dispossessed  of  his  prey,  must  have  learned  by  this  time 
to  pity  Tantalus. 

A  pulse  assuredly  was  felt  along  the  line  of  the  Elysian 
shades,  when  the  near  arrival  of  G.  D.  was  announced  by  no 
equivocal  indications.  From  their  seats  of  Asphodel  arose 
the  gentler  and  the  graver  ghosts — poet  or  historian — of 
Grecian  or  of  Koman  lore — to  crown  with  unfading  chaplets 
the  half-finished  love-labours  of  their  unwearied  scholiast. 
Him  Markland  expected — him  Tyrwhitt  hoped  to  encounter 
— him  the  sweet  lyrist  of  Peter  House,  whom  he  had  barely 

seen  upon  earth,*  with  newest  airs  prepared  to  greet ; 

and,  patron  of  the  gentle  ( 'hrist's  boy — who  should  have  been 
his  patron  through  life — the  mild  Askew,  with  longing  aspi- 
rations, leaned  foremost  from  his  venerable  JEsculapian  chair, 
to  welcome  into  that  happy  company  the  matured  virtues  of 
the  man.  whose  tender  scions  in  the  boy  he  himself  upon 
earth  had  so  prophetically  fed  and  watered. 

*  Ckail'.m  tkntwn  vidit. 


232  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


SOME  SONNETS  OF  SIR  PHILIP  SYDNEY. 

Sidney's  sonnets — I  speak  of  the  best  of  them — are  among 
the  very  best  of  their  sort.  They  fall  below  the  plain  moral 
dignity,  the  sanctity,  and  high  yet  modest  spirit  of  self-ap- 
proval of  Milton,  in  his  compositions  of  a  similar  structure. 
They  are,  in  truth,  what  Milton,  censuring  the  Arcadia,  says 
of  that  work,  (to  which  they  are  a  sort  of  after-tune  or  appli- 
cation,) "  vain  and  amatorious"  enough,  yet  the  things  in  their 
kind  (as  he  confesses  to  be  true  of  the  romance)  may  be 
"  full  of  worth  and  wit."  They  savour  of  the  courtier,  it 
must  be  allowed,  and  not  of  the  commonwealths-man.  But 
Milton  was  a  courtier  when  he  wrote  the  Masque  at  Ludlow 
Castle,  and  still  more  a  courtier  when  he  composed  the  Ar- 
cades. When  the  national  struggle  was  to  begin,  he  becom- 
ingly cast  these  vanities  behind  him  ;  and  if  the  order  of  time 
had  thrown  Sir  Philip  upon  the  crisis  which  preceded  the 
revolution,  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  acted 
the  same  part  in  that  emergency,  which  has  glorified  the 
name  of  a  later  Sydney.  He  did  not  want  for  plainness  or 
boldness  of  spirit.  His  letter  on  the  French  match  may  tes- 
tify he  coidd  speak  his  mind  freely  to  princes.  The  times 
did  not  call  him  to  the  scaffold. 

The  sonnets  which  we  oftenest  call  to  mind  of  Milton 
were  the  compositions  of  his  maturest  years.  Those  of  Syd- 
ney, which  I  am  about  to  produce,  were  written  in  the  very 
heyday  of  his  blood.  They  are  stuck  full  of  amorous  fan- 
cies— far-fetched  conceits,  befitting  his  occupation  ;  for  true 
love  thinks  no  labour  to  send  out  thoughts  upon  the  vast, 
and  more  than  Indian  voyages,  to  bring  home  rich  pearls,  out- 
landish wealth,  gums,  jewels,  spicery,  to  sacrifice  in  self-de- 
preciating similitudes,  as  shadows  of  true  amiabilities  in  the 
beloved.  We  must  be  lovers — or  at  least  the  cooling  touch 
of  time,  the  circum  prcecordia  frigus,  must  not  have  so  damped 
our  faculties  as  to  take  away  our  recollection  that  we  were  once 
so — before  we  can  duly  appreciate  the  glorious  vanities  and 
graceful  hyperboles  of  the  passion.  The  images  which  lie 
before  our  feet  (though  by  some  accounted  the  only  natural) 
are  least  natural  for  the  high  Sydnean  love  to  express  its  fan- 
cies by.  They  may  serve  for  the  loves  of  Tibullus,  or  the 
dear  author  of  the  Schoolmistress  ;  for  passions  that  creep 
and  whine    in   elegies   ami  pastoral  ballads.      I  am  sure  Mil- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  833 

ton  never  loved  at  this  rate.  I  am  afraid  some  of  his  address- 
es [ad  Lconoram  I  mean)  have  rather  erred  on  the  farther  side  ; 
and  that  the  poet  came  not  much  short  of  a  religious  inde- 
corum when  he  could  thus  apostrophize  a  singing-girl :  — 

"  Angelus  unicuique  suus  (sic,  credite  gentes) 

Obtigit  a'therms  ales  al>  ordmibus. 
Quid  minim,  Leonoia,  tibi  si  gloria  major, 

Nam  tua  prx-sentem  vox  sonat  ipsa  Deum  ! 
Aut  Deus,  aut  vacui  certc  mens  tertia  call 

Per  tua  sccreto  gultura  serpit  agens  ; 
Serpit  agens,  factusque  docet  mortalia  corda 

Sensim  immoitali  assuescere  posse  sono. 
QtJOD  m  C0NCTJ  itiiDEM  Deus  est,  per  cunctaqce  pcms, 

In  te  una  loquitur,  cetera  mutus  habet." 

This  is  loving  in  a  strange  fashion  ;  and  it  requires  some  can- 
dour of  construction  (hesides  the  slight  darkening  of  a  dead 
language)  to  cast  a  veil  over  the  ugly  appearance  of  some- 
thing very  like  hlasphemy  in  the  last  two  verses.  I  think  tin; 
lover  would  have  heen  staggered  if  he  had  gone  about  to 
express  the  same  thought  in  English.  1  am  sure  Sydney 
has  no  flights  like  this.  His  extravaganzas  do  not  strike  at 
the  sky,  though  he  takes  leave  to  adopt  the  pale  Dian  into  a 
fellowship  with  his  mortal  passions. 

I. 

"  With  how  sad  steps,  oh  moon,  thou  climb'st  the  skies ; 
How  silently  ;  and  with  how  wan  a  face ' 
What !  may  it  be,  that  even  in  heavenly  place 
That  busy  archer  his  sharp  arrows  tries  ' 
Sure,  if  that  long-with-love-acquainted  eyes 
Can  judge  of  love,  thou  feel'st  a  lover's  case  ; 
I  read  it  in  thy  looks;  thy  languisht  grace 
To  me,  that  feel  the  like,  thy  state  descries. 
Then,  even  of  fellowship,  oh  moon,  tell  me, 
Is  constant  love  deem'd  there  but  tant  of  wit  .' 
Are  beauties  there  as  proud  as  here  they  be  ? 
Do  they  above  love  to  be  loved,  and  yet 
Those  lovers  scorn,  whom  that  love  doth  possess? 
Do  they  call  virtue  there — ungratefulness  .'" 

The  last  line  of  this  poem  is  a  little  obscured  by  transpo- 
sition.    He  means,  Do  they  call  ungratefulness  there  a  virtue  J 

n. 

"  Come,  Sleep,  oh  Sleep,  the  certain  knot  of  peace, 
The  baiting-place  of  wit,  the  balm  of  wo. 
The  poor  man's  wealth,  the  prisoner's  reli 
The  indifferent  judge  between  the  high  and  low  ; 

With  shield  of  proof  shield  me  from  out  the  prease* 
Of  those  tierce  darts  despair  at  me  doth  throw; 
Oh  make  in  me  those  civil  wars  to  cease  : 
I  will  good  tribute  pay,  if  thou  do  so 

♦Press. 
20* 


234  ESSAYS    OF   ELIA. 

Take  thou  of  me  sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed ; 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light ; 
A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head. 
And  if  these  things,  as  being  thine  by  right, 
Move  not  thy  heavy  grace,  thou  shalt  in  me, 
Livelier  than  elsewhere   Stella's  image  see. 


III. 

The  curious  wits,  seeing  dull  pensiveness 
Bewray  itself  in  my  long-settled  eyes, 
Whence  those  same  fumes  of  melancholy  rise, 
With  idle  pains,  and  missing  aim,  do  guess. 
Some,  that  know  how  my  spring  I  did  address, 
Deem  that  my  muse  some  fruit  of  knowledge  plies; 
Others,  because  the  prince  my  service  tries, 
Think  that  I  think  state  errors  to  redress  ; 
But  harder  judges  judge,  ambition's  rage, 
Scourge  of  itself,  still  climbing  slippery  place, 
Holds  my  young  brain  captived  in  golden  cage. 
Oh  fools,  or  over- wise  !  alas,  the  race 
Of  all  my  thoughts  hath  neither  stop  nor  start, 
But  only  Stella's  eyes,  and  Stella's  heart. 


•«  Because  I  oft  in  dark  abstracted  guise 
Seem  most  alone  in  greatest  company, 
With  dearth  of  words,  or  answers  quite  awry, 
To  them  that  would  make  speech  of  speech  arise  ; 
They  deem,  and  of  their  doom  the  rumour  flies, 
That  poison  foul  of  bubbling  pride  doth  lie 
So  in  my  swelling  breast,  that  only  I 
Fawn  on  myself,  and  others  do  despise  ; 
Yet  pride,  I  think,  doth  not  my  soul  possess, 
Which  looks  too  oft  in  his  unflattering  glass : 
But  one  worse  fault— ambition — I  confess, 
That  makes  me  oft  my  best  friends  overpass, 
Unseen,  unheard — while  thought  to  highest  place 
Bends  all  his  Dowers,  even  unto  Stella's  grace. 


"  Having  this  day  my  horse,  my  hand,  my  lance, 
Guided  so  well  that  I  obtain 'd  the  prize, 
Both  by  the  judgment  of  the  English  eyes, 
And  of  some  sent  from  that  sweet  enemy — France ; 
Horsemen  my  skill  in  horsemanship  advance ; 
Townsfolk  my  strength  ;  a  daintier  judge  applies 
His  praise  to  sleight,  which  from  good  use  doth  rise; 
Some  lucky  wits  impute  it  but  to  chance  ; 
Others,  because  of  both  sides  1  do  take 
My  blood  from  them,  who  did  excel  in  this, 
Think  Nature  me  a  man  of  arms  did  make. 
How  far  they  shot  awry  !  the  true  cause  is, 
Stella  look'd  on,  and  from  her  heavenly  face 
Sent  forth  the  beams  which  made  so  fair  my  race. 

VI. 

"  In  martial  sports  I  had  my  cunning  tried, 
And  yet  to  break  more  staves  did  me  address, 
While  with  the  people's  shouts  (I  must  confess) 
Youth,  luck,  and  praise,  even  fill'd  my  veins  with  pride— 


ESSAYS    OF   ELIA.  235 

When  Cupid  having  me  (his  slave)  descried 

In  Mars's  livery,  prancing  in  the  press, 

4  What  now,  Sir  Fool !  said  he  :  *  1  would  no  less  : 

Look  here,  I  say.'     I  look'd,  and  Stella  spied, 

Who  hard  by  made  a  window  send  forth  light. 

My  heart  thenquak'd,  then  dazzled  were  mine  eyes; 

One  hand  forgot  to  rule,  th'  other  to  fight ; 

Nor  trumpet's  sound  1  heard,  nor  friendly  cries. 

My  foe  came  on,  and  beat  the  air  for  me — 

Till  that  her  blush  made  me  my  shame  to  see. 


"  No  more,  my  dear,  no  more  these  counsels  try ; 
Oh  give  my  passions  leave  to  run  their  race  ; 
Let  Fortune  lay  on  me  her  worst  disgrace  ; 
Let  folk  o'ercharged  with  brain  against  me  cry  ; 
Let  clouds  bedim  my  face,  break  m  mine  eye  ; 
Let  me  no  steps,  but  of  lost  labour,  trace  ; 
Let  all  the  earth  with  scorn  recount  my  case — 
But  do  not  will  me  from  my  love  to  fly. 
I  do  not  envy  Aristotle's  wit, 
Nor  do  aspire  to  Cassar's  bleeding  fame  ; 
Nor  aught  do  care,  though  some  above  me  sit ; 
Nor  hope,  nor  wish,  another  course  to  frame, 
But  that  which  once  may  win  thy  cruel  heart : 
Thou  art  my  wit,  and  thou  my  virtue  art. 


"  Love  still  a  boy,  and  oft  a  wanton,  is, 
School'd  only  by  his  mother's  tender  eye  ; 
What  wonder,  then,  if  he  his  lesson  miss, 
When  for  so  soft  a  rod  dear  play  he  try  ? 
And  yet  my  Star,  because  a  sugar'd  kiss 
In  sport  I  suck'd,  while  she  asleep  did  lie, 
Doth  lour,  nay,  chide,  nay,  threat,  for  only  this. 
Sweet,  it  was  saucy  Love,  not  humble  I. 
But  no  'scuse  serves  ;  she  makes  her  wrath  appear 
In  beauty's  throne — see  now  who  dares  come  near 
Those  scarlet  judges,  threat'ning  bloody  pain  ? 
Oh  heav'nly  fool,  thy  most  kiss  worthy  face 
Anger  invests  with  such  a  lovely  grace, 
That  anger's  self  I  needs  must  kiss  again. 


"  I  never  drank  of  Aganippe  well, 
Nor  ever  did  in  shade  of  Tempe  sit, 
And  muses  scorn  with  vulgar  brains  to  dwell ; 
Poor  layman  I,  for  sacred  rites  unfit. 
Some  do  I  hear  of  poet's  fury  tell, 
But  (God  wot)  wot  not  what  they  mean  by  it ; 
And  this  I  swear  by  blackest  brook  of  hell, 
1  am  no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit. 
How  falls  it,  then,  that  with  so  smooth  an  rase 
My  thoughts  I  speak,  and  what  I  speak  doth  flow 
In  verse,  and  that  my  verse  best  wits  doth  please? 
Guess  me  the  cause — what,  is  it  thus  '. — fy,  no. 
Or  so? — much  less.     How  then  ?  sure  thus  it  is, 
My  lips  are  sweet,  inspired  with  Stella's  kiss. 


"  Of  all  the  kings  that  ever  here  did  reign, 
Edward,  named  Fourth,  as  first  in  praise  I  name, 


236  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

Not  for  his  fair  outside,  nor  well-lined  brain — 
Although  less  gifts  imp  feathers  oft  on  Fame. 
Nor  that  he  could,  young-wise,  wise-valiant,  frame 
His  sire's  revenge,  join'd  with  a  kingdom's  gain  ; 
And,  gain'd  by  Mars  could  yet  mad  Mars  so  tame, 
That  balance  weigh'd  what  sword  did  late  obtain. 
Nor  that  he  made  the  Floure-de-luce  so  'fraid, 
Though  strongly  hedged  of  bloody  lions'  paws 
That  witty  Lewis  to  him  a  tribute  paid. 
Nor  this,  nor  that,  nor  any  such  small  cause — 
But  only,  for  this  worthy  knight  durst  prove 
To  lose  his  crown  rather  than  fail  his  love. 


1  Oh  happy  Thames,  that  didst  my  Stella  bear, 
I  saw  thyself,  with  many  a  smiling  line 
Upon  thy  cheerful  face,  joy's  livery  wear, 
While  those  fair  planets  on  thy  streams  did  shine; 
The  boat  for  joy  could  not  to  dance  forbear, 
While  wanton  winds,  with  beauty  so  divine 
Kavish'd,  stay'd  not,  till  in  her  golden  hair 
They  did  themselves  (oh  sweetest  prison)  twine. 
And  fain  those  ^Eol's  youth  there  would  their  stay 
Have  made ;  but,  forced  by  nature  still  to  fly, 
First  did  with  puffing  kiss  those  locks  display 
She,  so  dishevell'd,  blush'd  ;  from  window  I 
With  sight  thereof  cried  out,  '  Oh  fair  disgrace, 
Let  honour's  self  to  thee  grant  highest  place  !' 


"  Highway,  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be ; 
And  that  my  muse,  to  some  ears  not  unsweet, 
Tempers  her  words  to  trampling  horses'  feet, 
More  soft  than  to  a  chamber  melody  ; 
Now  blessed  you  bear  onward  blessed  me 
To  her,  where  1  my  heart  safe  left  shall  meet, 
My  Muse  and  I  must  you  of  duty  greet 
With  thanks  and  wishes,  wishing  thankfully, 
Be  you  still  fair,  honour'd  by  public  heed, 
By  no  encroachment  wrong'd,  nor  time  forgot ; 
Nor  blamed  for  blood,  nor  shamed  for  sinful  deed. 
And  that  you  know,  I  envy  you  no  lot 
Of  highest  wish,  I  wish  you  so  much  bliss, 
Hundreds  of  years  you  Stella's  feet  may  kiss." 

Of  the  foregoing,  the  first,  the  second,  and  the  last  sonnet 
are  my  favourites.  But  the  general  beauty  of  them  all  is, 
nat  they  are  so  perfectly  characteristical.  The  spirit  of 
"learning  and  of  chivalry" — of  which  union  Spenser  has 
entitled  Sydney  to  have  been  the  "president" — shines  through 
them.  I  confess  I  can  see  nothing  of  the  "jejune"  or  "  frigid" 
in  them;  much  less  of  the  "stiff"  and  "cumbrous" — which 
J  have  sometimes  heard  objected  to  the  Arcadia.  The  verse 
runs  off  swiftly  and  gallantly.  It  might  have  been  tuned  to 
the  trumpet ;  or  tempered  (as  himself  expresses  it)  to  "  tramp 
ling  horses'  feet."     They  abound  in  felicitous  phrases — 


ESSAYS    OF    EL1A.  237 

;  Oh  heav'nly  fool,  thy  most  kiss-worthy  face" — 


"Sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed  ; 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light ; 
A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head." 


"  That  sweet  enemy — France" — 


8th  Sonnet. 


2d  Sonnet, 


5th  Sonnet. 


But  they  are  not  rich  in  words  only,  in  vague  and  unreal- 
ized feelings — the  failing  too  much  of  some  poetry  of  the 
present  day — they  are  full,  material,  and  circumstantiated. 
Time  and  place  appropriates  every  one  of  them.  It  is  not  a 
fever  of  passion  wasting  itself  upon  a  thin  diet  of  dainty 
words,  but  a  transcendent  passion  pervading  and  illuminating 
action,  pursuits,  studies,  feats  of  arms,  the  opinions  of  con- 
temporaries, and  his  judgment  of  them.  An  historical  thread 
runs  through  them,  which  almost  affixes  a  date  to  them  ; 
marks  the  when  and  where  they  were  written. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  upon  what  I  conceive  the  merit  of 
these  poems,  because  I  have  been  hurt  by  the  wantonness  (I 
wish  I  could  treat  it  by  a  gentler  name)  with  which  W.  II. 
takes  every  occasion  of  insulting  the  memory  of  Sir  Philip 
Sydney.  But  the  decisions  of  the  author  of  Table-Talk,  &c, 
(most  profound  and  subtle  where  they  are,  as  for  the  most 
part,  just,)  are  more  safely  to  be  relied  upon,  on  subjects  and 
authors  he  has  a  partiality  for,  than  on  such  as  he  has  con- 
ceived an  accidental  prejudice  against.  Milton  wrote  son- 
nets, and  was  a  king-hater  ;  and  it  was  congenial,  perhaps,  to 
sacrifice  a  courtier  to  a  patriot.  But  I  was  unwilling  to  lose 
a  fine  idea  from  my  mind.  The  noble  images,  passions,  sen- 
timents, and  poetical  delicacies  of  character  scattered  all 
over  the  Arcadia,  (spite  of  some  stiffness  and  encumberment.) 
justify  to  me  the  character  which  his  contemporaries  have 
left  us  of  the  writer.  I  cannot  think  with  the  Critic,  that  Sir 
Philip  Sydney  was  that  opprobrious  th/mr  which  a  foolish 
nobleman  in  his  insolent  hostility  chose  to  term  him.  I  call 
to  mind  the  epitaph  made  on  him,  to  guide  me  to  juster 
thoughts  of  him ;  and  I  repose  upon  the  beautiful  lines  in  the 
"  Friend's  Passion  for  his  Astrophel,"  printed  with  the  Elegies 
of  Spenser  and  others. 

"You  knew — who  knew  not  Astrophel ? 

(That  I  should  live  to  say  I  knew, 

And  have  not  in  possession  still  !) — 

Things  known  permit  me  to  renew  - 

Of  him  you  know  his  merit  such, 

I  cannot  say — you  hear — too  much. 


238  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

"Within  these  woods  of  Arcady 
He  chief  delight  and  pleasure  took ; 
And  on  the  mountain  Partheny, 
Upon  the  crystal  liquid  brook, 
The  muses  met  him  every  day, 
That  taught  him  sing,  to  write,  and  say. 

"  When  he  descended  down  the  mount, 

His  personage  seem'd  most  divine  ; 

A  thousand  graces  one  might  count 

Upon  his  lovely  cheerful  eyne. 

To  hear  him  speak,  and  sweetly  smile, 

You  were  in  paradise  the  while. 

''■  A  sweet  attractive  kind  of  grace  ; 
A  full  assurance  given  by  looks  ; 
Continual  comfort  in  a  face, 
The  lineaments  of  Gospel  books — 
I  trow  that  count'nance  cannot  lie, 
Whose  thoughts  are  legible  in  the  eye. 


"  Above  all  others  this  is  he, 
Which  erst  approved  in  his  song, 
That  love  and  honour  might  agree, 
And  that  pure  love  will  do  no  wrong. 

Sweet  saints,  it  is  no  sin  or  blame 

To  love  a  man  of  virtuous  name. 

'  Did  never  love  so  sweetly  breathe 
In  any  mortal  breast  before  : 
Did  never  muse  inspire  beneath 
A  poet's  brain  with  finer  store. 

He  wrote  of  love  with  high  conceit, 
And  beauty  rear'd  above  her  height." 

Or  let  any  one  read  the  deeper  sorrows  (grief  running  into 
rage)  in  the  poem — the  last  in  the  collection  accompanying 
the  above — which  from  internal  testimony  I  believe  to  be 
Lord  Brooke's — beginning  with  "  Silence  augmenteth  grief" 
— and  then  seriously  ask  himself,  whether  the  subject  of  such 
absorbing  and  confounding  regrets  could  have  been  that  thing 
which  Lord  Oxford  termed  him. 


NEWSPAPERS  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO. 

Dan  Stuart  once  told  us,  that  he  did  not  remember  that 
he  ever  deliberately  walked  into  the  exhibition  at  Somerset 
House  in  his  life.  He  might  occasionally  have  escorted  a 
party  of  ladies  across  the  way  that  were  going  in  ;  but  he 
never  went  in  of  his  own  head.     Yet  the  office  of  the  Morning 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  239 

Post  newspaper  stood  then  just  where  it  does  now — we  are 
carrying  you  back,  reader,  some  thirty  years  or  more — with 
its  gilt-globe-topped  front  facing  that  emporium  of  our  artists' 
grand  annual  exposure.  We  sometimes  wish  that  we  had 
observed  the  same  abstinence  with  Daniel. 

A  word  or  two  of  I).  S.  He  ever  appeared  to  us  one  of  the 
finest  tempered  of  editors.  Perry  of  the  Morning  Chronicle 
was  equally  pleasant,  with  a  dash,  no  slight  one  either,  of  the 
courtier.  S.  was  frank,  plain,  and  English  all  over.  We  have 
worked  for  both  these  gentlemen. 

It  is  soothing  to  contemplate  the  head  of  the  Ganges ;  to 
trace  the  first  little  bubblings  of  a  mighty  river ; 

"  With  holy  reverence  to  approach  the  rocks, 
Whence  glide  the  streams  renown'd  in  ancient  song." 

Fired  with  a  perusal  of  the  Abyssinian  pilgrim's  explora 
tory  ramblings  after  the  cradle  of  the  infant  Nilus,  we  well  re- 
member on  one  fine  summer  holyday  (a  "  whole  day's  leave" 
we  called  it  at  Christ's  Hospital)  sallying  forth  at  rise  of  sun 
not  very  well  provisioned  either  for  such  an  undertaking,  to 
trace  the  current  of  the  New  River — Middletonian  stream  ! — 
to  its  scaturient  source,  as  we  had  read,  in  meadows  by  fair 
A  in  well.  Gallantly  did  we  commence  our  solitary  quest — for 
it  was  essential  to  the  dignity  of  a  discovery,  that  no  eye  of 
schoolboy,  save  our  own,  should  beam  on  the  detection.  By 
flowery  spots  and  verdant  lanes,  skirting  Hornsey,  hope 
trained  us  on  in  manyabafiling  turn;  endless,  hopeless  mean- 
ders, as  it  seemed  ;  or  as  if  the  jealous  waters  had  dodged  us, 
reluctant  to  have  the  humble  spot  of  their  nativity  revealed  ; 
till  spent,  and  nigh  famished,  before  the  set  of  the  same  sun, 
we  sat  down  somewhere  by  Bowes  Farm,  near  Tottenham, 
with  a  tithe  of  our  proposed  labours  only  yet  accomplished  ; 
sorely  convinced  in  spirit  that  that  Brucian  enterprise  was  aa 
yet  too  arduous  for  our  young  shoulders. 

Not  more  refreshing  to  the  thirsty  curiosity  of  the  traveller 
is  the  tracing  of  some  mighty  waters  up  to  their  shallow  font- 
let,  than  it  is  to  a  pleased  and  candid  reader  to  go  back  to  the 
inexperienced  essays,  the  first  callow  flights  in  authorship,  of 
some  established  name  in  literature  ;  from  the  gnat  which 
preluded  to  the  iEneid,  to  the  duck  which  Samuel  Johnson 
trod  on. 

In  those  days  every  morning  paper,  as  an  essential  retainer 
to  its  establishment,  kept  an  author,  who  was  bound  to  furnish 
daily  a  quantum  of  witty  paragraphs.  Sixpence  a  joke — and 
it  was  thought  pretty  high  too — was  Dan  Stuart's  settled  re- 
muneration in  these  cases.     The  chat  of  the  day,  scandal,  but, 


240  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

above  all,  dress,  furnished  the  material.  The  length  of  no 
paragraph  was  to  exceed  seven  lines.  Shorter  they  might  be, 
but  they  must  be  poignant. 

A  fashion  of  flesh,  or  rather  pink  coloured  hose  for  the  ladies, 
luckily  coming  up  at  the  juncture  when  we  were  on  our  pro- 
bation for  the  place  of  chief  jester  to  S.'s  paper,  established 
our  reputation  in  that  line.  We  were  pronounced  a  "  capital 
hand."  Oh  the  conceits  which  we  varied  upon  red  in  all  its 
prismatic  differences !  from  the  trite  and  obvious  flower  of 
Cytherea.  to  the  flaming  costume  of  the  lady  that  has  her  sit- 
ting upon  "  many  waters."  Then  there  was  the  collateral 
topic  of  ankles.  What  an  occasion  to  a  truly  chaste  writer, 
like  ourself,  of  touching  that  nice  brink,  and  yet  never  tumb- 
ling over  it,  of  a  seemingly  ever  approximating  something 
"  not  quite  proper ;"  while,  like  a  skilful  posture-master,  bal- 
ancing between  decorums  and  their  opposites,  he  keeps  the 
line,  from  which  a  hair's  breadth  deviation  is  destruction  ; 
hovering  in  the  confines  of  light  and  darkness,  or  where 
"  both  seem  either  ;"  a  hazy,  uncertain  delicacy  ;  Autolycus- 
like  in  the  play,  still  putting  off  his  expectant  auditory  with 
"  Whoop,  do  me  no  harm,  good  man  !"  But,  above  all,  that 
conceit  arrided  us  most  at  that  time,  and  still  tickles  our  mid- 
riff to  remember,  where,  allusively  to  the  flight  of  Astrsea — - 
ultima  Ceelestiim  terras  reliquit — we  ■  pronounced — in  refer- 
ence to  the  stockings  still — that  Modesty,  taking  her  final 

LEAVE  OF  MORTALS,  HER  LAST  BLUSH  WAS  VISIBLE  IN  HER 
ASCENT  TO  THE  HEAVENS  BY  THE  TRACT  OF  THE  GLOWING  IN- 
STEP. This  might  be  called  the  crowning  conceit ;  and  was 
esteemed  tolerable  writing  in  those  days. 

But  the  fashion  of  jokes,  wiih  all  other  things,  passes 
away ;  as  did  the  transient,  mode  which  had  so  favoured  us. 
The  ankles  of  our  fair  friends  in  a  few  weeks  began  to  reas- 
sumc  their  whiteness,  and  left  us  scarce  a  leg  to  stand  upon. 
Other  female  whims  followed,  but  none,  methought,  so  preg- 
nant, so  invitatory  of  shrewd  conceits,  and  more  than  single 
meanings. 

Somebody  has  said,  that  to  swallow  six  cross-buns  daily, 
consecutively  for  a  fortnight,  would  surfeit  the  stoutest  diges- 
tion. But  to  have  to  furnish  as  many  jokes  daily,  and  that 
not  for  a  fortnight,  but  for  a  long  twelvemonth,  as  we  were 
constrained  to  do,  was  a  little  harder  exaction.  "Man  goeth 
forth  to  his  work  until  the  evening" — from  a  reasonable  hour 
in  the  morning,  we  presume  it  was  meant.  Now,  as  our 
main  occupation  took  us  up  from  eight  till  five  every  day  in 
the  city  ;  and  as  our  evening  hours,  at  that  time  of  life,  had 
generally  to  do  witli  anything  rather  than  business,  it  follows, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  211 

that  the  only  time  we  could  spare  for  this  manufactory  of 
jokes — our  supplementary  livelihood,  that  supplied  us  in  every 
want  beyond  mere  bread  and  cheese — was  exactly  that  part 
of  the  day  which  (as  we  have  heard  of  No  Man's  Land)  may 
be  fitly  denominated  No  Man's  Time;  that  is,  no  time  in 
which  a  man  ought  to  be  up,  and  awake,  in.  To  speak  more 
plainly1,  it  is  that  time,  of  an  hour,  or  an  hour  and  a  half's  du- 
ration, in  which  a  man,  whose  occasions  call  him  up  so  pre- 
posterously, has  to  wait  for  his  breakfast. 

Oh  those  headaches  at  dawn  of  day,  when  at  five,  or  half 
past  five  in  summer,  and  not  much  later  in  the  dark  seasons, 
we  were  compelled  to  rise,  having  been  perhaps  not  above 
four  hours  in  bed — (for  we  were  no  go-to-beds  with  the  lamb, 
though  we  anticipated  the  lark  ofttimes  in  her  rising — we  liked 
a  parting  cup  at  midnight,  as  all  young  men  did  before  these 
effeminate  times,  and  to  have  our  friends  about  us — we  were 
not  constellated  under  Aquarius,  that  watery  sign,  and  there- 
fore incapable  of  Bacchus,  cold,  washy,  bloodless — we  were 
none  of  your  Basilian  water-sponges,  nor  had  taken  our  de- 
grees at  Mount  Ague — we  were  right  toping  Capulets,  jolly 
companions,  we  and  they) — but  to  have  to  get  up,  as  we  said 
before,  curtailed  of  half  our  fair  sleep,  fasting,  with  only  a 
dim  vista  of  refreshing  Bohea  in  the  distance — to  be  neces- 
sitated to  rouse  ourselves  at  the  detested  rap  of  an  old  hag  of 
a  domestic,  who  seemed  to  take  a  diabolical  pleasure  in  her 
announcement  that  it  was  "  time  to  rise ;"  and  whose  chappy 
knuckles  we  have  often  yearned  to  amputate,  and  string  them 
up  at  our  chamber  door,  to  be  a  terror  to  all  such  unseasona- 
ble rest-breakers  in  future. 

"  Facil"  and  sweet,  as  Virgil  sings  n-id  been  the  "  descend- 
ing" of  the  over-night,  balmy  the  first  sinking  of  the  heavy 
head  upon  the  pillow  ;  but  to  get  up   as  he  goes  on  to  say, 

"  Revocare  grailus,  superasque  evadere  ad  auras" — 

and  to  get  up,  moreover,  to  make  jokes  with  malice  prepended 
—  there  was  the  "labour,"  there  the  "work." 

No  Egyptian  taskmaster  ever  devised  a  slavery  like  to  that, 
our  slavery.  No  fractious  operants  ever  turned  out  for  hall' 
the  tyranny  which  this  necessity  exercised  upon  us.  Haifa 
dozen  jests  m  a  day,  (bating  Sundays  too,)  why,  it  seems  noth- 
ing! We  make  twice  the  number  every  day  in  our  lives  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  claim  no  Sabbatical  exemptions.  But 
then  they  come  into  our  head.  But  when  the  head  has  to  go 
out  to  them — when  the  mountain  must  go  to  Mohammed — 

Reader,  try  it  for  once,  onlv  for  one  short  twelvemonth. 
21  L 


242  ESSAYS    OF   ELIA. 

It  was  not  every  week  that  a  fashion  of  pink  stockings 
came  up  ;  but  mostly,  instead  of  it,  some  rugged,  untractable 
subject ;  some  topic  impossible  to  be  contorted  into  the  risible  ; 
some  feature,  upon  which  no  smile  could  play;  some  flint, 
from  which  no  process  of  ingenuity  could  procure  a  distilla- 
tion. There  they  lay ;  there  your  appointed  tale  of  brick- 
making  was  set  before  you,  which  you  must  finish,  with  or 
without  straw,  as  it  happened.  The  craving  dragon — the  pub- 
lic— like  him  in  Bel's  temple — must  be  fed ;  it  expected  its 
daily  rations  ;  and  Daniel  and  ourselves,  to  do  us  justice,  did 
the  best  we  could  on  this  side  bursting  him. 

While  we  were  wringing  out  coy  sprightliness  for  the  Post, 
and  writhing  under  the  toil  of  what  is  called  "  easy  writing," 
Bob  Allen,  our  quondam  schoolfellow,  was  tapping  his  im- 
practicable brains  in  a  like  service  for  the  "  Oracle."  Not 
that  Robert  troubled  himself  much  about  wit.  If  his  para- 
graphs had  a  sprightly  air  about  them,  it  was  sufficient.  He 
carried  this  nonchalance  so  far  at  last,  that  a  matter  of  intelli- 
gence, and  that  no  very  important  one,  was  not  seldom  palmed 
upon  his  employers  for  a  good  jest;  for  example's  sake — 
"  Walking  yesterday  morning  casually  down  Snow  Hill,  who 
should  we  meet  but  Mr.  Deputy  Humphreys  !  we  rejoice  to  add, 
that  the  worthy  deputy  appeared  to  enjoy  a  good  state  of  health. 
Wc  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  him  look  better."  This 
gentleman,  so  surprisingly  met  upon  Snow  Hill,  from  some 
peculiarities  in  gait  or  gesture,  was  a  constant  butt  for  mirth 
to  the  small  paragraph-mongers  of  the  day ;  and  our  friend 
thought  that  he  might  have  his  fling  at  him  with  the  rest. 
We  met  A.  in  Holborn  shortly  after  this  extraordinary  ren- 
counter, which  he  told  with  tears  of  satisfaction  in  his  eyes, 
and  chuckling  at  the  anticipated  effects  of  its  announcement 
next  day  in  the  paper.  We  did  not  quite  comprehend  where 
the  wit  of  it  lay  at  the  time  ;  nor  was  it  easy  to  be  detected 
when  the  thing  came  out,  advantaged  by  type  and  letter-press. 
He  had  better  have  met  anything  that  morning  than  a  com- 
mon council  man.  His  services  were  shortly  after  dispensed 
with,  on  the  plea  that  his  paragraphs  of  late  had  been  defi- 
cient in  point.  The  one  in  question,  it  must  be  owned,  had 
un  air,  in  the  opening  especially,  proper  to  awaken  curiosity; 
and  the  sentiment,  or  moral,  wears  the  aspect  of  humanity 
and  good  neighbourly  feeling.  But  somehow  the  conclusion 
was  not  judged  altogether  to  answer  to  the  magnificent  prom- 
ise of  the  premises.  We  traced  our  friend's  pen  afterward  in 
the  "True  Briton,"  the  "Star,"  the  "Traveller" — from  all 
which  he  was  successively  dismissed,  the  proprietors  having 
"no  further  occasion  for  his  services*"     Nothing  whs  easier 


ESSAYS*    OF    ELIA.  213 

than  to  detect  him.  When  wit  failed,  or  topics  ran  low,  there 
constantly  appeared  the  following — "  It  is  not  generally  known 
thai  the  three  blue  hulls  tit  the  pawnbrokers',  shops  are  the 
ancient  arms  of  Lombardy.  The  Lombards  were  the  first 
money-brokers  in  Europe."  Bob  has  dune  more  tu  set  the 
public  right  on  this  important  puint  of  blazonry  than  the 
whole  college  of  heralds. 

The  appointment  uf  a  regular  wit  has  lung  ceased  to  be  a 
part  o(  the  economy  uf  a  morning  paper.  Editurs  find  their 
own  jukes,  or  do  as  well  without  them.  Parson  Ebte  and 
Tupham  brought  up  the  set  custom  of  "  witty  paragrahs"  first 
in  the  "World."  Beaden  was  a  reigning  paragraphist  in  his 
day,  and  succeeded  poor  Allen  in  the  Oracle.  But,  as  we 
said,  the  fashion  of  jukes  passes  away  ;  and  it  weuld  be  diffi- 
cult to  discover  in  the  biographer  uf  Mrs.  Siddons,  any  traces 
of  that  vivacity  and  fancy  which  charmed  the  whole  town  at 
the  commencement  of  the  present  century.  Even  the  prelu- 
sive delicacies  of  the  present  writer — the  curt  "  Astrsan  al- 
lusion"— would  be  thought  pedantic  and  out  of  date  in  these 
days. 

From  the  office  of  the  Morning  Post,  (for  we  may  as  well 
exhaust  our  newspaper  reminiscences  at  once,)  by  change  of 
property  in  the  paper,  we  were  transferred,  mortifying  ex- 
change !  to  the  office  of  the  Albiun  Newspaper,  late  Raek- 
strow's  Museum,  in  Fleet-street.  What  a  transition — from  a 
handsome  apartment,  from  rosewood  desks,  and  silver  ink- 
stands, tu  an  office — no  office,  but  a  Jen  rather,  but  just  re- 
deemed from  the  occupation  of  dead  monsters,  of  which  it 
seemed  redolent — from  the  centre  of  loyalty  and  fashion  to  a 
focus  of  vulgarity  and  sedition !  Here  in  murky  closet,  in- 
adequate from  its  square  contents  to  the  receipt  of  the  two 
bodies  uf  editor  and  humble  paragraph-maker  together  at  one 
time,  sat,  in  the  discharge  of  his  new  editorial  functions,  (the 
"Bigod"  of  Elia,)  the  redoubted  John  Fenwick. 

F.,  without  a  guinea  in  his  pocket,  and  having  left  not  many 
in  the  pockets  of  his  friends  whom  he  might  command,  had 
purchased  (on  tick  doubtless)  the  whole  and  sole  editorship, 
proprietorship,  with  all  the  rights  and  titles  (such  as  they 
were  worth)  of  the  Albion,  from  one  Lovell  ;  of  whom  wo 
know  nothing,  save  that  he  had  stood  in  the  pillory  for  a  libel 
on  the  Prince  of  Wales.  With  this  hopeless  concern— for  it 
had  been  sinking  ever  since  its  commencement,  and  could 
now  reckon  upon  not  more  than  a  hundred  subscribers — F. 
resolutely  determined  upon  pulling  down  the  government  in 
the  first,  instance,  and  making  both  our  fortunes  by  way  of 
corollary.       For  seven  weeks  and  more  did  this  infatuated 

L2 


244  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

democrat  go  about  borrowing  seven-shilling  pieces,  and  lesser 
coin,  to  meet  the  daily  demands  of  the  stamp-office,  which  al- 
lowed no  credit  to  publications  of  that  side  in  politics.  An 
outcast  from  politer  bread,  we  attached  our  small  talents  to 
the  forlorn  fortunes  of  our  friend.  Our  occupation  now  was 
to  write  treason. 

Recollections  of  feelings — which  were  all  that  now  remained 
from  our  first  boyish  heats  kindled  by  the  French  revolution, 
when,  if  we  were  misled,  we  erred  in  the  company  of  some 
who  are  accounted  very  good  men  now — rather  than  any  ten- 
dency at  this  time  to  republican  doctrines — assisted  us  in  as- 
suming a  style  of  writing,  while  the  paper  lasted,  consonant, 
in  no  very  under  tone,  to  the  right  earnest  fanaticism  of  F. 
Our  cue  was  now  to  insinuate,  rather  than  recommend,  possi- 
ble abdications.  Blocks,  axes,  Whitehall  tribunals,  were  cov- 
ered with  flowers  of  so  cunning  a  periphrasis — as  Mr.  Bayes 
says,  never  naming  the  thing  directly — that  the  keen  eye  of 
an  attorney-general  was  insufficient  to  detect  the  lurking 
snake  among  them.  There  were  times,  indeed,  when  we 
sighed  for  our  more  gentleman-like  occupation  under  Stuart. 
But  with  change  of  masters  it  is  ever  change  of  service.  Al- 
ready one  paragraph,  and  another,  as  we  learned  afterward 
from  a  gentleman  at  the  treasury,  had  begun  to  be  marked  at 
that  office,  with  a  view  of  its  being  submitted  at  least  to  the 
attention  of  the  proper  law-officers — when  an  unlucky,  or  ra- 
ther lucky  epigram  from  our  pen,  aimed  at  Sir  J s  M h, 

who  was  on  the  eve  of  departing  for  India  to  reap  the  fruits 
of  his  apostacy,  as  F.  pronounced  it,  (it  is  hardly  worth  par- 
ticularizing,) happening  to  offend  the  nice  sense  of  Lord,  or,  as 
he  then  delighted  to  be  called,  Citizen  Stanhope,  deprived  F. 
at  once  of  the  last  hopes  of  a  guinea  from  the  last  patron  that 
had  stuck  by  us  ;  and,  breaking  up  our  establishment,  left  us 
to  the  safe,  but  somewhat  mortifying,  neglect  of  the  crown 
lawyers.  It  was  about  this  time,  or  a  little  earlier,  that  Dan 
Stuart  made  that  curious  confession  to  us,  that  he  had  "  never 
deliberately  walked  into  an  exhibition  at  Somerset  House  in 
his  life." 


ESSAVS    UK    ELI  A.  845 


BARRENNESS   OF  THE   IMAGINATIVE    FACULTY 
IN  THE  PRODUCTIONS  OF  MODERN  ART. 

Hogarth  excepted,  can  Ave  produce  any  one  painter  within 
the  last  fifty  years,  or  since  the  humour  of  exhibiting  began, 
that  has  treated  a  story  imaginatively  ?  By  this  we  mean,  upon 
whom  his  subject  has  so  acted,  that  it  has  seemed  to  direct  him 
— not  to  be  arranged  by  him  ?  Any  upon  whom  its  leading  or 
collateral  {joints  have  impressed  themselves  so  tyrannically,  that 
he  dared  not  treat  it  otherwise,  lest  he  should  falsify  a  revela- 
tion ?  Any  that  has  imparted  to  his  compositions,  not  merely 
so  much  truth  as  is  enough  to  convey  a  story  with  clearness, 
but  that  individualizing  property  which  should  keep  the  sub- 
ject so  treated  distinct  in  feature  from  every  other  subject, 
however  similar,  and  to  common  apprehensions  almost  identi- 
cal ;  so  as  that  we  might  say,  This  and  this  part  could  have  found 
an  appropriate  place  in  no  other  picture  in  the  world  but  this  ? 
Is  there  anything  in  modern  art — we  will  not  demand  that  it 
should  be  equal — but  in  anyway  analogous  to  what  Titian  has 
effected,  in  that  wonderful  bringing  together  of  two  times  in 
the  "  Ariadne,"  in  the  National  Gallery?  Precipitous,  with 
his  reeling  satyr  rout  about  him,  repeopling  and  redluming 
suddenly  the  waste  places,  drunk  with  a  new  fury  beyond  the 
grape,  Bacchus,  bom  in  fire,  firelike,  flings  himself  at  the 
Cretan.  This  is  the  time  present.  With  this  telling  of  the 
story — an  artist,  and  no  ordinary  one,  might  remain  richly 
proud.  Guido,  in  his  harmonious  version  of  it,  saw  no  further. 
But  from  the  depths  of  the  imaginative  spirit  Titian  has  re- 
called past  time,  and  laid  it  contributory  with  the  present  to 
one  simultaneous  effect.  With  the  desert  all  ringing  with 
the  mad  cymbals  of  his  followers,  made  lucid  with  the  pres- 
ence and  new  offers  of  a  god — as  if  unconscious  of  Bacchus, 
or  but  idly  casting  her  eyes  as  upon  some  unconcerning  pageant 
— her  soul  undistracted  from  Theseus — Ariadne  is  still  pacing 
the  solitary  shore,  in  as  much  heart-silence,  and  in  almost  the 
same  local  solitude,  with  which  she  awoke  at  daybreak  to 
catch  the  forlorn  last  glances  of  the  sail  that  bore  away  the 
Athenian. 

Here  are  two  points  miraculously  co-uniting ;  fierce  so- 
ciety, with  the  feeling  of  solitude  still  absolute  ;  noonday  reve- 
lations, with  the  accidents  of  the  dull  gray  dawn  unquenched 
and  lingering  ;  and  the  present  Bacchus,  with  the  past  Ariadne  ; 
21* 


246  E3SAYS    OF    ELIA. 

two  stories,  with  double  time  ;  separate,  and  harmonizing. 
Had  the  artist  made  the  woman  one  shade  less  indifferent  to 
the  god  ;  still  more,  had  she  expressed  a  rapture  at  his  ad- 
vent, where  would  have  been  the  story  of  the  mighty  desola- 
tion of  the  heart  previous  ?  merged  in  the  insipid  accident  of 
a  flattering  offer  met  with  a  welcome  acceptance.  The 
broken  heart  for  Theseus  was  not  lightly  to  be  pieced  up  by 
a  god. 

We  have  before  us  a  fine  rough  print,  from  a  picture  by 
Raphael  in  the  Vatican.  It  is  the  presentation  of  the  new- 
born Eve  to  Adam  by  the  Almighty.  A  fairer  mother  of  man- 
kind we  might  imagine,  and  a  goodlier  sire  perhaps  of  men 
since  born.  But  these  are  matters  subordinate  to  the  concep- 
tion of  the  situation,  displayed  in  this  extraordinary  produc- 
tion. A  tolerably  modern  artist  would  have  been  satisfied 
with  tempering  certain  raptures  of  connubial  anticipation,  with 
a  suitable  acknowledgment  to  the  Giver  of  the  blessing,  in  the 
countenance  of  the  first  bridegroom  ;  something  like  the  di- 
vided attention  of  the  child  (Adam  was  here  a  child  man)  be- 
tween the  given  toy,  and  the  mother  who  had  just  blessed  it  with 
the  bawble.  This  is  the  obvious,  the  first-sight  view,  the  su- 
perficial. An  artist  of  a  higher  grade,  considering  the  awful 
presence  they  were  in,  would  have  taken  care  to  subtract 
something  from  the  expression  of  the  more  humane  passion, 
and  to  heighten  the  more  spiritual  one.  This  would  be  as 
much  as  an  exhibition-goer,  from  the  opening  of  Somerset 
House  to  last  year's  show,  has  been  encouraged  to  look  for. 
It  is  obvious  to  hint  at  a  lower  expression  yet,  in  a  picture, 
that,  for  respects  of  drawing  and  colouring,  might  be  deemed 
not  wholly  inadmissible  within  these  art-fostering  walls,  in 
which  the  raptures  should  be  as  ninety-nine,  the  gratitude  as 
one,  or  perhaps  zero  !  By  neither  the  one  passion  nor  the 
other  has  Raphael  expounded  the  situation  of  Adam.  Singly 
upon  his  brow  sits  the  absorbing  sense  of  wonder  at  the 
created  miracle.  The  moment  is  seized  by  the  intuitive  artist, 
perhaps  not  self-conscious  of  his  art,  in  which  neither  of  the 
conflicting  emotions — a  moment  how  abstracted — have  had 
time  to  spring  up,  or  to  battle  for  indecorous  mastery.  We 
have  seen  a  landscape  of  a  justly  admired  neoteric,  in  which 
he  aimed  at  delineating  a  fiction,  one  of  the  most  severely 
beautiful  in  antiquity — the  gardens  of  the  Hespefides.  Todo 
Mr. justice,  he  had  painted  a  laudable  orchard,  with  fit- 
ting seclusion,  and  a  veritable  dragon  (of  which  a  I'olvpheme, 
by  Poussin,  is  somehow  a  fac-simile  for  the  situation)  look- 
ing over  into  the  world  shut  out  backwards,  so  that  none  but  a 
"still-climbing  Hercules"  could  hope  to  catch  a  peep  at  the 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  247 

admired  Ternary  of  recluses.  No  conventual  porter  could 
keep  his  keys  better  than  this  custos  with  the  "  lidless  eyes." 
He  not  only  sees  that  none  Jo  intrude  into  that  privacy,  but, 
as  clear  as  daylight,  that  none  but  Hercules  nut  Diabolus  by 
any  manner  of  means  can.  So  far  all  is  well.  We  have  ab- 
solute solitude  here  or  nowhere.  Ab  extra,  the  damsels  are 
snug  enough.  But  here  the  artist's  courage  seems  to  have 
failed  him.  He  began  to  pity  his  pretty  charge,  and,  to  com- 
fort the  irksomeness,  has  peopled  their  solitude  with  a  bevy 
of  fair  attendants,  maids  of  honour,  or  ladies  of  the  bed- 
chamber, according  to  the  approved  etiquette  at  a  court  of  the 
nineteenth  century  ;  giving  to  the  whole  scene  the  air  of  a 
fete  champetrc,  if  we  will  but  excuse  the  absence  of  the  gen- 
tlemen. This  is  well,  and  Watteauish.  But  what  is  become 
of  the  solitary  mystery — the 

"  Daughters  three, 
That  sing  around  the  golden  tree?" 

This  is  not  the  way  in  which  Poussin  would  have  treated 
this  subject. 

The  paintings,  or  rather  the  stupendous  architectural  de- 
signs, of  a  modern  artist,  have  been  urged  as  objections  to 
the  theory  of  our  motto.  They  are  of  a  character,  we  con- 
fess, to  stagger  it.  His  towered  structures  are  of  the  highest 
order  of  the  material  sublime.  Whether  they  were  dreams, 
or  transcripts  of  some  elder  workmanship — Assyrian  ruins 
old — restored  by  this  mighty  artist,  they  satisfy  our  most* 
stretched  and  craving  conceptions  of  the  glories  of  the  an- 
tique world.  It  is  a  pity  that  they  were  ever  peopled.  On 
that  side  the  imagination  of  the  artist  halts,  and  appears  de- 
fective. Let  us  examine  the  point  of  the  story  in  the  "  Bel- 
shazzar's  Feast."  We  will  introduce  it  by  an  opposite  anec- 
dote. 

The  court  historians  of  the  day  record,  that  at  the  first 
dinner  given  by  the  late  king  (then  prince  regent)  at  the 
Pavilion,  the  following  characteristic  frolic  was  played  off. 
The  guests  were  select  and  admiring  ;  the  banquet  profuse 
and  admirable  ;  the  lights  lustrous  and  oriental  ;  the  eye  was 
perfectly  dazzled  with  the  display  of  plate,  among  which  the 
great  gold  saltcellar,  brought  from  the  regalia  in  the  Tower  for 
this  especial  purpose,  itself  a  tower  !  stood  conspicuous  for  its 
magnitude.  And  now  the  Rev.  *  *  *  *,  the  then  admired 
court  chaplain,  was  proceeding  with  the  grace,  when,  at  a 
signal  given,  the  lights  were  suddenly  overcast,  and  a  hugo 
transparency  was  discovered,  in  which  glittered  in  gold  let- 
ters-'— 


248  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

"  Brighton* — Earthquake — Svv allow-up-alive  V 

Imagine  the  confusion  of  the  guests  the  Georges  and  gar- 
ters, jewels,  bracelets,  moulted  upon  the  occasion  !  The  fans 
dropped,  and  picked  up  the  next  morning  by  the  sly  court 
pages  !  Mrs.  Fitz-what's-her-nanie  fainting,  and  the  Countess 
of  *  *  *  holding  the  smelling-bottle,  till  the  good-humoured 
prince  caused  harmony  to  be  restored  by  calling  in  fresh 
candles,  and  declaring  that  the  whole  was  nothing  but  a  pan- 
lomime  hoax,  got  up  by  the  ingenious  Mr.  Farley  of  Covent 
Garden,  from  hints  which  his  royal  highness  himself  had 
furnished  !  Then  imagine  the  infinite  applause  that  followed, 
the  mutual  rallyings,  the  declarations  that  "  they  were  not 
much  frightened,"  of  the  assembled  galaxy. 

The  point  of  time  in  the  picture  exactly  answers  to  the 
appearance  of  the  transparency  in  the  anecdote.  The  hud- 
dle, the  flutter,  the  bustle,  the  escape,  the  alarm,  and  the  mock 
alarm ;  the  prettinesses  heightened  by  consternation ;  the 
courtier's  fear  which  was  flattery,  and  the  lady's  which  was 
affectation ;  all  that  we  may  conceive  to  have  taken  place  in 
a  mob  of  Brighton  courtiers,  sympathizing  with  the  well-acted 
surprise  of  their  sovereign  ;  all  this,  and  no  more,  is  exhibited 
by  the  well-dressed  lords  and  ladies  in  the  Hall  of  Belus. 
Just  this  sort  of  consternation  we  have  seen  among  a  flock 
of  disquieted  wild  geese  at  the  report  only  of  a  gun  having 
gone  off! 

But  is  this  vulgar  fright,  this  mere  animal  anxiety  for  the 
preservation  of  their  persons — such  as  we  have  witnessed  at 
a  theatre,  when  a  slight  alarm  of  fire  has  been  given — an  ad- 
equate exponent  of  a  supernatural  terror  ?  the  way  in  which 
the  finger  of  God,  writing  judgments,  would  have  been  met 
by  the  withered  conscience  ?  There  is  a  human  fear,  and  a 
divine  fear.  The  one  is  disturbed,  restless,  and  bent  upon 
escape.  The  other  is  bowed  down,  effortless,  passive. 
When  the  spirit  appeared  before  Eliphaz  in  the  visions  of  the 
night,  and  the  hair  of  his  flesh  stood  up,  was  it  in  the  thoughts 
of  the  Temanite  to  ring  the  bell  of  his  chamber,  or  to  call  up 
the  servants?  But  let  us  see  in  the  text  what  there  is  to  jus- 
tify all  this  huddle  of  vulgar  consternation. 

From  the  words  of  Daniel  it  appears  that  Belshazzar  had 
made  a  great  feast  to  a  thousand  of  his  lords,  and  drank  wine 
before  the  thousand.  The  golden  and  silver  vessels  are  gor- 
geously enumerated,  with  the  princes,  the  king's  concubines, 
and  his  wives.      Then  follows — 

*  In  the  same  hour  came  forth  fingers  of  a  man's  hand,  and 
wrote  over  against  the  candlestick  upon  the  plaster  of  the  wall 


LSSAVS    OF    ELLA.  249 

of  the  king's  palace  ;  and  the  king  saw  the  part  of  the  hand 
that  wrote.  Then  the  king's  countenance  was  changed,  and 
his  thoughts  troubled  him,  so  that  the  joints  of  his  loins  were 
loosened,  and  his  knees  smote  one  against  another." 

This  is  the  plain  text.  By  no  hint  can  it  be  otherwise 
inferred,  but  that  the  appearance  was  solely  confined  to  the 
fancy  of  Belshazzar,  that  his  single  brain  was  troubled.  Not 
a  word  is  spoken  of  its  being  seen  by  any  else  there  present, 
not  even  by  the  queen  herself,  who  merely  undertakes  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  phenomenon,  as  related  to  her,  doubtless, 
by  her  husband.  The  lords  are  simply  said  to  be  astonished  ; 
i.  e.,  at  the  trouble  and  the  change  of  countenance  in  their 
sovereign.  Even  the  prophet  does  not  appear  to  have  seen 
the  scroll,  which  the  king  saw.  He  recalls  it  only,  as  Joseph 
did  the  dream  to  the  King  of  Egypt.  "  Then  was  the  part 
of  the  hand  sent  from  him,  [the  Lord,]  and  this  writing  was 
written."     He  speaks  of  the  phantasm  as  past. 

Then  what  becomes  of  this  needless  multiplication  of  the 
miracle  ?  this  message  to  a  royal  conscience,  singly  ex- 
pressed— for  it  was  said,  "  thy  kingdom  is  divided" — simul- 
taneously impressed  upon  the  fancies  of  a  thousand  courtiers, 
who  were  implied  in  it  neither  directly  nor  grammatically  ? 

But  admitting  the  artist's  own  version  of  the  story,  and  that 
the  sight  was  seen  also  by  the  thousand  courtiers — let  it  have 
been  visible  to  all  Babylon — as  the  knees  of  Belshazzar  were 
shaken,  and  his  countenance  troubled,  even  so  would  the 
knees  of  every  man  m  Babylon,  and  their  countenances,  as 
of  an  individual  man,  been  troubled  ;  bowed,  bent  down,  so 
would  they  have  remained,  stupor-tixed,  with  no  thought  of 
struggling  with  that  inevitable  judgment. 

Not  all  that  is  optically  possible  to  be  seen  is  to  be  shown 
in  every  picture.  The  eye  delightedly  dwells  upon  the  brill- 
iant individualities  in  a  "Marriage  at  Cana,"  by  Veronese  or 
Titian,  to  the  very  texture  and  colour  of  the  wedding  gar- 
ments, the  ring  glittering  upon  the  bride's  fingers,  the  metal 
and  fashion  of  the  wine-pots  ;  for  at  such  seasons  there  is 
leisure  and  luxury  to  be  curious.  But  in  a  "  day  of  judg- 
ment,'' or  in  a  "  day  of  lesser  horrors,  yet  divine,"  as  at  the 
impious  feast  of  Belshazzar,  the  eye  should  see,  as  the  actual 
eye  of  an  agent  or  patient  in  the  immediate  scene  would  see, 
only  in  musses  and  indistinclion.  Not  only  the  female  attiro 
ami  jewellery  exposed  to  the  critical  eye  of  fashion,  as  mi- 
nutely as  the  dresses  in  a  lady's  magazine,  in  the  criticised 
picture — but  perhaps  the  curiosities  of  anatomical  science, 
and  studied  diversities  of  posture  in  the  falling  angels  and 
L  3 


250  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

sinners  of  Michael  Angelo — have  no  business  in  their  great 
subjects.     There  was  no  leisure  for  them. 

By  a  wise  falsification,  the  great  masters  of  painting  got 
at  their  true  conclusions  ;  by  not  showing  the  actual  appear- 
ances, that  is,  all  that  was  to  be  seen  at  any  given  moment 
by  an  indifferent  eye,  but  only  what  the  eye  might  be  sup- 
posed to  see  in  the  doing  or  suffering  of  some  portentous 
action.  Suppose  the  moment  of  the  swallowing  up  of  Pom- 
peii. There  they  were  to  be  seen — houses,  columns,  archi- 
tectural proportions,  differences  of  public  and  private  build- 
ings, men  and  women  at  their  standing  occupations,  the  diver- 
sified thousand  postures,  attitudes,  dresses,  in  some  confusion 
truly,  but  physically  they  were  visible.  But  what  eye  saw 
them  at  that  eclipsing  moment,  which  reduces  confusion  to  a 
kind  of  unity,  and  when  the  senses  are  upturned  from  their 
proprieties,  when  sight  and  hearing  are  a  feeling  only  ?  A 
thousand  years  have  passed,  and  we  are  at  leisure  to  contem- 
plate the  weaver  fixed  standing  at  his  shuttle,  the  baker  at 
his  oven,  and  to  turn  over,  with  antiquarian  coolness,  the  pots 
and  pans  of  Pompeii. 

"  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon,  and  thou,  Moon,  in  the 
valley  of  Ajalon."  Who,  in  reading  this  magnificent  Hebraism, 
in  his  conception,  sees  aught  but  the  heroic  son  of  Nun,  with 
the  outstretched  arm,  and  the  greater  and  lesser  light  obsequi- 
ous? Doubtless  there  were  to  be  seen  hill  and  dale,  and 
chariots  and  horsemen,  on  open  plain,  or  winding  by  secret 
defiles,  and  all  the  circumstances  and  stratagems  of  war. 
But  whose  eyes  would  have  been  conscious  of  this  array  at 
the  interposition  of  the  synchronic  miracle  ?  Yet  in  the  pic- 
ture of  this  subject  by  the  artist  of  the  "  Belshazzar's  Feast" 
— no  ignoble  work  either — the  marshalling  and  landscape  of 
the  war  are  everything,  the  miracle  sinks  into  an  anecdote  of 
the  day  ;  and  the  eye  may  "  dart  through  rank  and  file  tra- 
verse" for  some  minutes,  before  it  shall  discover,  among  his 
armed  followers,  which  is  Joshua  !  Not  modern  art  alone,  but 
ancient,  where  only  it  is  to  be  found  if  anywhere,  can  be  de- 
tected erring,  from  defect  of  this  imaginative  faculty.  The 
world  has  nothing  to  show  of  the  preternatural  in  painting, 
transcending  the  figure  of  Lazarus  bursting  his  grave-clothes, 
in  the  great  picture  at  Angerstein's.  It  seems  a  thing  between 
two  beings.  A  ghastly  horror  at  itself  struggles  with  newly- 
apprehending  gratitude  at  second  life  bestowed.  It  cannot 
forget  that  it  was  a  ghost.  It  has  hardly  felt  that  it  is  a  body. 
It  has  to  tell  of  the  world  of  spirits.  Was  it  from  a  feeling, 
that  the  crowd  of  half-impassioned  by-standers,  and  the  stdl 
more  irrelevant  herd  of  passers-by  at  a  distance,  who  have 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  251 

not  heard,  or  but  faintly  have  been  told,  of  the  passing  miracle, 
admirable  as  they  are  in  design  and  line — for  it  is  a  glorified 
work — do  not  respond  adequately  to  the  action — that  the  sin- 
gle figure  of  the  Lazarus  lias  been  attributed  to  Michael  An- 
gelo,  and  the  mighty  Sebastian  unfairly  cobbed  of  the  fame  of 
the  greater  half  of  the  interest  ?  Now,  that  there  were  not  in- 
different passers-by  within  actual  scope  of  the  eyes  of  those 
present  at  the  miracle,  to  whom  the  sound  of  it  had  but  faintly, 
or  not  at  all,  reached,  it  would  be  hardihood  to  deny  ;  hut 
would  they  see  them  ?  or  can  the  mind  in  the  conception  of  it 
admit  of  such  unconcerning  objects  ?  can  it  think  of  them  at 
all '.  or  what  associating  league  to  the  imagination  can  there 
be  between  the  seers,  and  the  seers  not,  of  a  presentiai  mir- 
acle ? 

"Were  an  artist  to  paint  upon  demand  a  picture  of  a  dryad, 
we  will  ask  whether,  in  the  present  low  state  of  expectation, 
the  patron  would  not,  or  ought  not  to  be  fully  satisfied  with  a 
beautiful  naked  figure  recumbent  under  wide-stretched  oaks  ? 
Disseat  those  woods,  and  place  the  same  figure  among  foun- 
tains, and  fall  of  pellucid  water,  and  you  have  a — naiad  ! 
Not  so  in  a  rough  print  we  have  seen  after  Julio  Romano,  we 
think — for  it  is  long  since — there,  by  no  process,  with  mere 
change  of  scene,  could  the  figure  have  reciprocated  characters. 
Long,  grotesque,  fantastic,  yet  with  a  grace  of  her  own,  beau- 
tiful in  convolution  and  distortion,  linked  to  her  connatural 
tree,  co-twisting  with  its  limbs  her  own,  till  both  seemed 
either — these,  animated  branches ;  those,  disanimated  mem- 
bers— yet  the  animal  and  vegetable  lives  sufficiently  kept  dis- 
tinct— his  dryad  lay — an  approximation  of  two  natures,  which, 
to  conceive,  it  must  be  seen  ;  analogous  to,  not  the  same  with, 
the  delicacies  of  Ovidian  transformations. 

To  the  lowest  subjects,  and,  to  a  superficial  comprehension, 
the  most  barren,  the  great  masters  gave  loftiness  and  fruitful- 
ness.  The  large  eye  of  genius  saw  in  the  meanness  of  pres- 
ent objects  their  capabilities  of  treatment  from  their  relations 
to  some  grand  past  or  future.  How  has  Raphael — we  must 
still  linger  about  the  Vatican — treated  the  humble  craft  of  the 
shipbuilder  in  jus  "  Building  of  the  Ark  ?"  It  is  in  that 
scriptural  series,  to  which  we  have  referred,  and  which, 
judging  from  some  fine  rough  old  graphic  sketches  of  theft) 
which  we  possess,  seem  to  be  of  a  higher  and  more  poetic 
grade  than  even  the  Cartoons.  The  dim  of  sight  are  the  timid 
and  the  shrinking.  There  is  a  cowardice  in  modern  art.  As 
the  Frenchmen,  of  whom  Coleridge's  friend  made  the  prophetic 
guess  at  Rome,  from  tin-  beard  and  horns  of  the  Moses  of 
Michael  Angel'o  collected  no  inferences  beyond  that  of  a  he 


252  ESSAYS     OF     ELIA- 

goat  and  a  Cornuto ,  so  from  this  subject,  of  mere  mechanic 
promise,  it  would  instinctively  turn  away,  as  from  one  incapa- 
ble of  investiture  with  any  grandeur.  The  dockyards  at 
Woolwich  would  object  derogatory  associations.  The  depot 
at  Chatham  would  be  the  mote  and  the  beam  in  its  intellectual 
eye.  But  not  to  the  nautical  preparations  in  the  shipyards 
of  Civita  Vecchia  did  Raphael  look  for  instructions,  when  he 
imagined  the  building  of  the  vessel  that  was  to  be  conserva- 
tory of  the  wrecks  of  the  species  of  drowned  mankind.  In 
the  intensity  of  the  action,  he  keeps  ever  out  of  sight  the 
meanness  of  the  operation.  There  is  the  patriarch,  in  calm 
forethought,  and  with  holy  prescience,  giving  directions. 
And  there  are  his  agents — the  solitary  but  sufficient  three — 
hewing,  sawing,  every  one  with  the  might  and  earnestness  of 
a  Demiurgus  ;  under  some  instinctive  rather  than  technical 
guidance ;  giant-muscled ;  every  one  a  Hercules,  or  liker 
to  those  Vulcanian  three,  that  in  sounding  caverns  under 
Mongibello  wrought  in  fire — Brontes,  and  black  Steropes, 
and  Pyracmon.  So  work  the  workmen  that  should  repair  a 
world  ! 

Artists  again  err  in  the  confounding  of  poetic  with  pictorial 
subjects.  In  the  latter,  the  exterior  accidents  are  nearly  every- 
thing, the  unseen  qualities  as  nothing.  Othello's  colour — the 
infirmities  and  corpulence  of  a  Sir  John  Falstaff — do  they 
haunt  us  perpetually  in  the  reading?  or  are  they  obtruded 
upon  our  conceptions  one  time  for  ninety-nine  that  we  are  lost 
in  admiration  at  the  respective  moral  or  intellectual  attributes 
of  the  character  1  But  in  a  picture  Othello  is  always  a  black- 
moor  ;  and  the  other  only  plump  Jack.  Deeply  corporeal- 
ized,  and  enchained  hopelessly  in  the  grovelling  fetters  of  ex- 
ternality, must  be  the  mind,  to  which,  in  its  better  moments, 
the  image  of  the  high-souled,  high-intelligenced  Quixote — the 
errant  star  of  knighthood,  made  more  tender  by  eclipse — has 
never  presented  itself,  divested  from  the  unhallowed  accom- 
paniment of  a  Sancho,  or  a  rabblement  at  the  heels  of  Kosi- 
nante.  That  man  has  read  his  book  by  halves  ;  he  has  laughed, 
mistaking  his  author's  purport,  which  was — tears.  The  artist 
that  pictures  Quixote  (and  it  is  in  this  degrading  point  that  he 
is  every  season  held  up  at  our  exhibitions)  in  the  shallow  hope 
of  exciting  mirth,  would  have  joined  the  rubble  at  the  heels 
of  his  starved  steed.  We  wish  not  to  see  that  counterfeited 
which  we  would  not  have  wished  to  see  in  the  reality.  Con- 
scious of  the  heroic  inside  of  the  noble  Quixote,  who,  on  hear- 
ing that  his  withered  person  was  passing,  would  have  stepped 
over  his  threshold  to  gaze  upon  his  forlorn  habiliments,  and 
the  "  strange  bedfellows  which  misery  brings  a  man  acquainted 


E33AVS    OF    KLIA.  203 

with?"  Shade  of  Cervantes  !  who  in  thy  second  part  could 
put  into  the  mouth  of  thy  Quixote  those  high  aspirations  of  a 
superchivalrous  gallantry,  where  he  replies  to  one  of  the 
shepherdesses,  apprehensive  that  he  would  spoil  their  pretty 
networks,  and  inviting  him  to  be  a  guest  with  them,  in  accents 
like  these:  "Truly,  fairest  lady,  AcUvou  was  not  more  as- 
toni&bed  when  he  saw  Diana  bathing  herself  at  the  fountain, 
than  I  have  been  in  beholding  your  beauty  :  I  commend  the 
manner  of  your  pastime,  and  thank  you  for  your  kind  oilers; 
and,  if  1  may  serve  you,  so  I  may  be  sure  you  will  be  obeyed, 
you  may  command  me  ;  for  my  profession  is  this,  to  show 
myself  thankful,  and  a  doer  of  good  to  all  sorts  of  people,  es- 
pecially of  the  rank  that  your  person  shows  you  to  be  ;  and  if 
those  nets,  as  they  take  up  but  a  little  piece  of  ground,  ,-diould 
take  up  the  whole  world,  I  would  seek  out  new  worlds  to 
pass  through,  rather  than  break  them  :  and,  (he  adds,)  that  you 
may  give  credit  to  this  my  exaggeration,  behold  at  leasj  he 
that  promiseth  you  this  is  Don  Quixote  de  la  Mancha,  if  haply 
this  name  hath  come  to  your  hearing."  Illustrious  romancer ! 
were  the  "  line  phrensies"  which  possessed  the  brain  of  thy 
own  Quixote  a  lit  subject,  as  in  this  second  part,  to  be  ex- 
posed to  the  jeers  of  duennas  and  serving-men  I  to  be  mon- 
stered,  and  shown  up  at  the  heartless  banquets  of  great  men  .' 
AVas  that  pitiable  infirmity,  which  in  thy  first  part  misleads 
him,  always  from  within,  into  half-ludicrous,  but  more  than 
half-compassionable  and  admirable  errors,  not  lulliction  enough 
from  Heaven,  that  men  by  studied  artifices  must  devise  and 
practise  upon  the  humour,  to  inflame  where  they  should  soolh 
it  ?  Why,  Goneril  would  have  blushed  to  practise  upon  the 
abdicated  king  at  this  rate,  and  the  she-wolf  Regan  not  have 
endured  to  play  the  pranks  upon  his  fled  wits,  which  thou  hast 
made  thy  Quixote  suffer  in  dutchesses'  halls,  and  at  the  hands 
ol  that  unworthy  nobleman.* 

In  the  fust  adventures,  even,  it  needed  all  the  art  of  the 
most  consummate  artist  in  the  book  way  that  the  world  hath 
yet  seen,  to  keep  up  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  heroic  at- 
tributes of  the  character  without  relaxing  ;  so  as  absolutely 
that  they  shall  suffer  no  alloy  from  the  debasing  fellowship 
of  the  clown.  If  it  ever  obtrudes  itself  as  a  disharmony,  are 
we  inclined  to  laugh;  or  not,  rather,  to  indulge  a  contrary 
emotion  '  Cervantes,  stung,  perchance,  by  the  relish  with 
which  his  reading  public  had  received  the  fooleries  of  the 
man,  more  to  their  palates  than  the  generosities  of  the  master, 
in  the.  secpjcl  let  his  pen  run  riot,  lost  the  harmony  and  the  bal- 

*  Yet  from  tins  second  part,  our  cned-up  pictures  are  mostly  selected  ,  tho 
waiting  women  with  beards,  &c. 

23 


254  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

ance,  and  sacrificed  a  great  idea  to  the  taste  of  his  contempo- 
raries. We  know  that  in  the  present  day  the  knight  has  fewer 
admirers  than  the  squire.  Anticipating,  what  did  actually 
happen  to  him — as  afterward  it  did  to  his  scarce  inferior  fol- 
lower, the  author  of  "  Guzman  de  Alfarache" — that  some  less 
knowing  hand  would  prevent  him  by  a  spurious  second  part; 
and  judging  that  it  would  be  easier  for  his  competitor  to  out- 
bid him  in  the  comicalities,  than  in  the  romance,  of  his  work, 
he  abandoned  his  knight,  and  has  fairly  set  up  the  squire  for 
his  hero.  For  what  else  has  he  unsealed  the  eyes  of  Sancho; 
and  instead  of  that  twilight  state  of  semi-insanity — the  mad- 
ness at  second-hand — the  contagion,  caught  from  a  stronger 
mind  infected — that  war  between  native  cunning  and  heredi- 
tary deference,  with  which  he  has  hitherto  accompanied  his 
master — two  for  a  pair  almost — does  he  substitute  a  down- 
right knave,  with  open  eyes,  for  his  own  ends  only  following 
a  confessed  madman;  and  offering  at  one  time  to  lay,  if  not 
actually  laying,  hands  upon  him  !  From  the  moment  that 
Sancho  loses  his  reverence,  Don  Quixote  is  become — a  treat- 
able lunatic.     Our  artists  handle  him  accordingly. 


REJOICINGS  UPON  THE  NEW  YEAR'S  COMING  OF 

AGE. 

The  Old  Year  being  dead,  and  the  New  Year  coming  of 
age,  which  he  does,  by  calendar  law,  as  soon  as  the  breath  is 
out  of  the  old  gentleman's  body,  nothing  would  serve  the  young 
spark  but  he  must  give  a  dinner  upon  the  occasion,  to  which 
all  the  Days  in  the  year  were  invited.  The  Festivals,  whom 
he  deputed  as  his  stewards,were  mightily  taken  with  the  notion. 
They  had  been  engaged  time  out  of  mind,  they  said,  in  pro- 
viding mirth  and  good  cheer  for  mortals  below ;  and  it  was 
time  they  should  have  a  taste  of  their  own  bounty.  It  was 
si  i Illy  debated  among  them,  whether  the  Fasts  should  he  ad- 
mitted. Some  said  the  appearance  of  such  lean,  starved 
guests,  with  their  mortified  faces,  would  pervert  the  ends  of 
tlic  meeting.  But  the  objection  was  overruled  by  Christmas 
Day,  who  had  a  design  upon  Ash  Wednesday,  (as  you  shall 
hear,)  and  a  mighty  desire  to  see  how  the  old  domine  would 
behave  himself  in  his  cups.  Only  the  Vigils  were  re- 
quested to  come  with  their  lanterns,  to  light  the  gentlefolks 
home  at  night. 


ESSAYS  OF  ELIA.  255 

All  the  Days  came  to  their  day.  Covers  were  provided 
for  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  guests  at  the  principal  table  ; 
with  an  occasional  knife  and  fork  at  the  sideboard  for  the 
Twenty-ninth  of  February. 

I  should  have  told  you  that  cards  of  invitation  had  been 
issued.  The  carriers  were  the  Hours  ;  twelve  little,  merry, 
whirligig  foot-pages,  as  you  should  desire  to  see,  thai  went 
all  round,  and  found  out  the  persons  invited  well  enough, 
with  the  exception  of  Easter  Day,  Shrove  Tuesday,  and  a  lew 
such  Moveables,  who  had  lately  shifted  their  quarters! 

Well,  they  all  met  at  last,  foul  Days,  fine  Days,  all  sorts  of 
Days,  and  a  rare  din  they  made  of  it.  There  was  nothing 
but,  Hail !  fellow  Day — well  met — brother  Day — sister  Day, 
— only  Lady  Day  kept  a  little  on  the  aloof,  and  seemed  some- 
what scornful.  Yet  some  said,  Twelfth  Day  cut  her  out  and 
out,  for  she  came  in  a  tiffany  suit,  white  and  gold,  like  a  queen 
on  a  frost-cake,  all  royal,  glittering,  and  Epipltanous.  The  rest 
came,  some  in  green,  some  in  white — but  old  Lent  and  his 
family  were  not  yet  out  of  mourning.  Rainy  Days  came  in, 
dripping;  and  sunshiny  Days  helped  them  to  change  their 
stockings.  Wedding  Day  was  there  in  his  marriage  finery, 
a  little  the  worse  for  wear.  Pay  Day  came  late,  as  he  always 
does  ;  and  Doomsday  sent  word — he  might  be  expected. 

April  Fool  (as  my  young  lord's  jester)  took  upon  himself 
to  marshal  the  guests,  and  wild  work  he  made  with  it.  It 
would  have  posed  old  Erra  Pater  to  have  found  out  any  given 
Dai/  in  the  year  to  erect  a  scheme  upon — good  Days,  bad 
Days,  were  so  shuffled  together,  to  the  confounding  of  all 
sober  horoscopy. 

He  had  stuck  the  Twenty-first  if  June  next  to  the  Tirenti/- 
second  of  December,  and  the  former  looked  like  a  mavpole 
siding  a  marrow-bone.  Ash  Wednesday  got  wedged  in  (as 
was  concerted)  between  Christmas  and  Lord  Mayor's  Days. 
Lord  !  how  he  laid  about  him  !  Nothing  but  barons  of  beef 
and  turkeys  would  go  down  with  him — to  the  great  L,rr< ■asiii<> 
and  detriment  of  his  new  sackcloth  bib  and  tucker.  Ami 
still  Christmas  Day  was  at  his  elbow,  plying  him  with  the 
wassail-bowl,  till  he  roared,  and  hiccoughed,  and  protested 
there  was  no  faith  in  dried  ling,  but  commended  it  to  the  devil 
for  a  sour,  windy,  acrimonious,  censorious,  hy-po-crit-crit- 
critical  mess,  and  no  dish  for  a  gentleman.  Then  lie  dipped  his 
fist  into  the  middle  of  the  great  custard  that  stood  before  Ins 
lift-hand  mighbour,  and  daubed  his  hungry  beard  all  over  with 
it,  till  you  would  have  taken  him  for  the  Last  Da//  in  Decem- 
ber, it  so  hung  in  icicles. 

At  another  part  of  the  table,  Shrove   Tuesday  was  helping 


256  ESSAYS    OF  ELIA. 

the  Second  of  September  to  some  cock-broth — which  courtesy 
the  latter  returned  with  the  delicate  thigh  of  a  hen  pheasant 
—so  there  was  no  love  lost  for  that  matter.  The  Last  of 
Lent  was  sponging  upon  Shrove  tide'' s  pancakes ;  which  April 
Fool  perceiving,  told  him  he  did  well,  for  pancakes  were  proper 
to  a  good  fry-day. 

In  another  part,  a  hubbub  arose  about  the  Thirtieth  of  Jan- 
uary, who,  it  seems,  being  a  sour,  Puritanic  character,  that 
thought  nobody's  meat  good  or  sanctified  enough  for  him, 
had  smuggled  into  the  room  a  calf's  head,which  he  had  had 
cooked  at  home  for  that  purpose,  thinking  to  feast  thereon  in- 
continently ;  but  as  it  lay  in  the  dish,  March  Manyweathers, 
who  is  a  very  fine  lady,  and  subject  to  the  megrims,  screamed 
out  there  was  a  '•  human  head  in  the  platter,"  and  raved  about 
Herodias'  daughter  to  that  degree,  that  the  obnoxious  viand 
was  obliged  to  be  removed  ;  nor  did  she  recover  her  stomach 
till  she  had  gulped  down  a  Restorative,  confected  of  Oak  Apple, 
which  the  merry  Twenty-ninth  of  May  always  carries  about 
with  him  for  that  purpose. 

The  king's  health*  being  called  for  after  this,  a  notable  dis- 
pute arose  between  the  Twelfth  of  August  (a  zealous  old  whig 
gentlewoman)  and  the  Ticenty-third  of  April,  (a  new-fangled  lady 
of  the  tory  stamp,)  as  to  which  of  them  should  have  the  honour 
to  propose  it.  August  grew  hot  upon  the  matter,  affirming  time 
out  of  mind  the  prescriptive  right  to  have  lain  with  her,  till  her 
rival  had  basely  supplanted  her ;  whom  she  represented  as 
little  belter  than  a  kept  mistress,  who  went  about  in  fine  clothes, 
while  she  (the  legitimate  Birthday)  had  scarcely  a  rag,  &c. 

April  Fool,  being  made  mediator,  confirmed  the  right  in  the 
strongest  form  of  words  to  the  appellant,  but  decided  for  peace' 
sake  that  the  exercise  of  it  should  remain  with  the  present 
possessor.  At  the  same  time,  he  slily  rounded  the  first  lady 
in  the  ear,  that  an  action  might  lie  against  the  crown  for  bi- 
geny. 

It  beginning  to  grow  a  little  duskish,  Candlemas  lustily 
bawled  out  for  lights,  which  was  opposed  by  all  the  Daus, 
who  protested  against  burning  daylight.  Then  fair  water  was 
handed  round  in  silver  ewers,  and  the  same  lady  was  observed 
to  take  an  unusual  time  in  washing  herself. 

May  Day,  with  that  sweetness  which  is  peculiar  to  her,  in 
a  neat  speech  proposing  the  health  of  the  founder,  crowned 
her  goblet  (and  by  her  example  the  rest  of  the  company) 
with  garlands.  This  being  done,  the  lordly  New  Year  from 
the  upper  end  of  the  table,  in  a  cordial   but  somewhat  lofty 

»  The  late  king. 


ESSAVS    OF    ELIA.  237 

tone,  returned  thanks.  lie  felt  proud  on  an  occasion  of  meet- 
ing so  many  of  his  worthy  father's  late  tenants,  promised  to 
improve  their  farms,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  abate  (if  any- 
thing was  Pound  unreasonable)  in  their  rents. 

At  the  mention  of  this,  the  four  Quarter  Days  involuntarily 
looked  at  each  other,  and  smiled  ;  April  Fool  whistled  to  an 
old  tune  of  "  New  Brooms  ;"  and  a  surly  old  rebel  at  the 
farther  end  of  the  table  (who  was  discovered  to  be  no  other 
than  the  Fifth  of  November)  muttered  out,  distinctly  enough 
to  be  heard  by  the  whole  company,  words  to  this  effect,  that, 
"  when  the  old  one  is  gone,  he  is  a  fool  that  looks  for  a  bet- 
ter." Which  rudeness  of  his  the  guests,  resenting,  unani- 
mously voted  his  expulsion  ;  and  the  malecontent  was  thrust 
out  neck  and  heels  into  the  cellar,  as  the  properest  place  for 
such  a  boutifiu  and  firebrand  as  he  had  shown  himself  to  be. 

Order  being  restored — the  young  lord  (who,  to  say  truth, 
had  been  a  little  milled,  and  put  beside  his  oratory)  in  as  few, 
and  yet  as  obliging  words  as  possible,  assured  them  of  entire 
welcome  ;  and,  with  a  graceful  turn,  singling  out  poor  Ticenty- 
ninth  of  February,  that  hltd  sat  all  this  while  mumchance 
at  the  sideboard,  begged  to  couple  his  health  with  that  of  the 
good  company  before  him — which  he  drank  accordingly  ;  ob- 
serving, that  he  had  not  seen  his  honest  face  any  time  these 
four  years — with  a  number  of  endearing  expressions  besides. 
At  the  same  time,  removing  the  solitary  Day  from  the  forlorn 
seat  which  had  been  assigned  him,  be  stationed  him  at  his 
own  board,  somewhere  between  the  Greek  Calends  and  Lat- 
ter Lammas. 

Ash  Wednesday,  being  now  called  upon  for  a  song,  with  his 
eyes  fast  stuck  in  his  head,  and  as  well  as  the  Canary  he  had 
swallowed  would  give  him  leave,  struck  up  a  carol,  which 
Christmas  Day  had  taught  him  for  the  nonce  ;  and  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  latter,  who  gave  "  Miserere"  in  fine  style,  hitting 
oil'  the  mumping  notes  and  lengthened  drawl  of  Old  Mortifi- 
cation with  infinite  humour.  April  Fool  swore  they  had  ex- 
changed conditions  :  but  Good  Friday  was  observed  to  look 
extremely  grave  ;  and  Sunday  held  her  fan  before  her  face, 
that  she  might  not  be  seen  to  smile. 

Shrovetide,  Lord  Mayor's  Day,  and  April  Fool,  next  joined 
in  a  glee — 

"  Which  is  the  properest  day  to  drink  ?" 

in  which  all  the  Days  chiming  in,  made  a  merry  burden. 

They  next  fell  to  quibbles  and  conundrums.     The  question 
being  proposed,  who  had  the  greatest  number  of  followers  — 
the  Quarter  Days  said,  there  could  be  no  question  as  to  that , 
22* 


2oO  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

for  they  had  all  the  creditors  in  the  world  dogging  their  heels. 
But  April  Fool  gave  it  in  favour  of  the  Forty  Days  before 
Easter;  because  the  debtors  in  all  cases  outnumbered  the 
creditors,  and  they  kept  lent  all  the  year. 

All  this  while,  Valentine's  Day  kept  courting  pretty  May, 
who  sat  next  him,  slipping  amorous  billets-doux  under  the 
table,  till  the  Dog  Days  (who  are  naturally  of  a  warm  consti- 
tution) began  to  be  jealous,  and  to  bark  and  rage  exceedingly. 
April  Fool,  who  likes  a  bit  of  sport  above  measure,  and  had 
some  pretensions  to  the  lady  besides,  as  being  but  a  cousin 
once  removed — clapped  and  hallooed  them  on  ;  and  as  fast  as 
their  indignation  cooled,  those  mad  wags,  the  Ember  Days, 
were  at  it  with  their  bellows,  to  blow  it  into  a  flame  ;  and  all 
was  in  a  ferment :  till  old  Madam  Septuagesima  (who  boasts 
herself  the  Mother  of  the  Days)  wisely  diverted  the  conver- 
sation with  a  tedious  tale  of  the  lovers  which  she  could  reckon 
when  she  was  young  ;  and  of  one  Master  Rogation  Day  in 
particular,  who  was  for  ever  putting  the  question  to  her  ;  but 
she  kept  him  at  a  distance,  as  the  chronicle  would  tell — by 
which  I  apprehend  she  meant  the  Almanac.  Then  she  ram- 
bled on  to  the  Days  that  were  gone,  the  good  old  Days,  and  so 
to  the  Days  before  the  Flood — which  plainly  showed  her  old 
head  to  be  little  better  than  crazed  and  doited. 

Day  being  ended,  the  Days  called  for  their  cloaks  and  great- 
coats, and  took  their  leaves.  Lord  Mayor's  Day  went  off"  in 
a  mist,  as  usual ;  Shortest  Day  in  a  deep  black  fog,  that 
wrapped  the  little  gentleman  all  round  like  a  hedge-hog. 
Two  Vigils — so  watchmen  are  called  in  heaven — saw 
Christmas  Day  safe  home — they  had  been  used  to  the  busi- 
ness before.  Another  Vigil  — a  stout,  sturdy  patrol,  called 
the  Eve  of  St.  Christopher — seeing  Ash  Wednesday  in  a  con- 
dition little  better  than  he  should  be— e'en  whipped  him  over 
his  shoulders,  pick-a-back  fashion,  and  Old  Mortification  went 
floating  home,  singing — 

"  On  the  bat's  back  do  I  fly," 

and  a  number  of  old  snatches  besides,  between  drunk  and 
sober,  but  very  few  Aves  or  Penitentiaries  (you  may  believe 
me)  were  among  them.  Longest  Day  set  off  westward  in 
beautiful  crimson  and  gold — the  rest,  some  in  one  fashion, 
some  in  another  ;  but  Valentine  and  pretty  May  took  their  de- 
parture together  in  one  of  the  prettiest  silvery  twilights  a 
Lover's  Day  could  wish  to  set  in. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA  259 


THE  WEDDING. 


I  Dojnot  know  when  I  have  been  better  pleased  than  at  be- 
ing invited  last  week  to  be  present  at  the  wedding  of  a  friend's 
daughter.  1  like  to  make  one  at  these  ceremonies,  which  to 
us  old  people  give  back  our  youth  in  a  manner,  and  restore 
our  gayest  season,  in  the  remembrance  of  our  own  success, 
or  the  regrets,  scarcely  less  tender,  of  our  own  youthful  dis- 
appointments, in  this  point  of  a  settlement.  On  these  occa- 
sions I  am  sure  to  be  in  good-humour  for  a  week  or  two  after, 
and  enjoy  a  reflected  honeymoon.  Being  without  a  family, 
I  am  flattered  with  these  temporary  adoptions  into  a  friend's 
family ;  I  feel  a  sort  of  cousinhood,  or  uncleship,  for  the 
season ;  I  am  inducted  into  degrees  of  affinity  ;  and,  in  the 
participated  socialities  of  the  little  community,  I  lay  down 
for  a  brief  while  my  solitary  bachelorship.  I  carry  this  hu- 
mour so  far,  that  I  take  it  unkindly  to  be  left  out,  even  when 
a  funeral  is  going  on  in  the  house  of  a  dear  friend.  But  to 
my  subject. 

The  union  itself  had  been  long  settled,  but  its  celebration 
had  been  hitherto  deferred,  to  an  almost  unreasonable  state  of 
suspense  in  the  lovers,  by  some  invincible  prejudices  which 
the  bride's  father  had  unhappily  contracted  upon  the  subject 
of  the  too  early  marriages  of  females.  He  has  been  lecturing 
any  time  these  five  years — for  to  that  length  the  courtship  has 
been  protracted — upon  the  propriety  of  putting  off  the  solem- 
nity till  the  lady  should  have  completed  her  five-and-twentieth 
year.  We  all  began  to  be  afraid  that  a  suit,  which  as  yet 
had  abated  of  none  of  its  ardours,  might  at  last  be  lingered 
on,  till  passion  had  time  to  cool,  and  love  go  out  in  the  ex- 
periment. But  a  little  wheedling  on  the  part  of  his  wife,  who 
was  by  no  means  a  party  to  these  overstrained  notions,  joined 
to  some  serious  expostulations  on  that  of  his  friends,  who, 
from  the  growing  infirmities  of  the  old  gentleman,  could  not 
promise  ourselves  many  years'  enjoyment  of  his  company, 
and  were  anxious  to  bring  matters  to  a  conclusion  during  his 
lifetime,  at  length  prevailed  ;  and  on  Monday  last  the  (laugh- 
ter of  my  old  friend,  Admiral ,  having  attained  the  womanly 

age  of  nineteen,  was  conducted  to  the  (.lunch  by  her  pleasant 
eonsin  J ,  who  told  some  lew  years  older. 

Before  the  youthful  part  of  my  female  readers  express 
their  indi{mati®n  at  the  abominable  loss  of  time  occasioned  to 


2G0  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

the  lovers  by  the  preposterous  notions  of  my  old  friend,  they 
will  do  well  to  consider  the  reluctance  which  a  fond  parent 
naturalhy  feels  at  parting  with  his  child.  To  this  unwilling- 
ness, I  believe,  in  most  cases  may  be  traced  the  difference  of 
opinion  on  this  point  between  child  and  parent,  whatever  pre- 
tences of  interest  or  prudence  may  be  held  out  to  cover  it. 
The  hard-heartedness  of  fathers  is  a  fine  theme  for  romance- 
wi  iters,  a  sure  and  moving  topic  ;  but  is  there  not  something 
untender,  to  say  no  more  of  it,  in  the  hurry  which  a  beloved 
child  is  sometimes  in  to  tear  herself  from  the  paternal  stock, 
and  commit  herself  to  strange  graftings  1  The  case  is  heigh- 
tened where  the  lady,  as  in  the  present  instance,  happens  to 
be  an  only  child.  I  do  not  understand  these  matters  experi- 
mentally, but  I  can  make  a  shrewd  guess  at  the  wounded  pride 
of  a  parent  upon  these  occasions.  It  is  no  new  observation, 
I  believe,  that  a  lover  in  most  cases  has  no  rival  so  much  to 
be  feared  as  the  father.  Certainly  there  is  a  jealousy  in  un- 
parallel  subjects,  which  is  little  less  heart-rending  than  the 
passion  which  we  more  strictly  christen  by  that  name. 
Mothers'  scruples  are  more  easily  got  over  ;  for  this  reason,  I 
suppose,  that  the  protection  transferred  to  a  husband  is  less  a 
derogation  and  a  loss  to  their  authority  than  to  the  paternal. 
Mothers,  besides,  have  a  trembling  foresight,  which  paints  the 
inconveniences  (impossible  to  be  conceived  in  the  same  de- 
gree by  the  other  parent)  of  a  life  of  forlorn  celibacy,  which 
the  refusal  of  a  tolerable  match  may  entail  upon  their  child. 
Mothers'  instinct  is  a  surer  guide  here  than  the  cold  reason- 
ings of  a  father  on  such  a  topic.  To  this  instinct  may  be 
imputed,  and  by  it  ajone  may  be  excused,  the  unbeseeming 
artifices  by  which  some  wives  push  on  the  matrimonial  pro- 
jects of  their  daughters,  which  the  husband,  however  appro- 
ving, shall  entertain  with  comparative  indifference.  A  little 
shamelessness  on  this  head  is  pardonable.  With  this  expla- 
nation, forwardness  becomes  a  grace,  and  maternal  importu- 
nity receives  the  name  of  a  virtue.  But  the  parson  stays, 
while  I  preposterously  assume  his  office  ;  I  am  preaching, 
while  the  bride  is  on  the  threshold. 

Nor  let  any  of  my  female  readers  suppose  that  the  sage 
reflections  which  have  just  escaped  me  have  the  obliquest 
tendency  of  application  to  the  young  lady,  who,  it  will  be 
seen,  is  about  to  venture  upon  a  change  in  her  condition, 
at  a  mature  and  competent  age,  and  not  without  the  fullest 
approbation  of  all  parties.  I  only  deprecate  very  hasty  mar- 
riages. 

It  had  been  fixed  that  the  ceremony  should  be  gone  through 
at  an  early  hour,  to  give  time  for  a  little  dijeune  afterward, 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  2G1 

to  which  a  select  party  of  friends  had  Keen  invited.  We  were 
in  church  a  little  before  the  clock  struck  eight. 

Nothing  could  be  more  judicious  or  graceful  than  the  dress 
ol  the  bridemaids — the  three  charmirlg  Miss  Foresters — on 
this  morning.  To  give  the  bride  an  opportunity  of  shining 
singly,  they  had  come  habited  all  in  green.  I  am  ill  at  de- 
scribing female  apparel  ;  but,  while  she  stood  at  the  altar  in 
vestments  white  and  candid  as  her  thoughts,  a  sacrificial 
whiteness,  they  assisted  in  robes,  such  as  might  become 
Diana's  nymphs — Foresters  indeed — as  such  who  had  not  yet 
come  to  the  resolution  of  putting  off  cold  virginity.  These 
young  maids,  not  being  so  blessed  as  to  have  a  mother  living, 
I  am  told,  keep  single  for  their  father's  sake,  and  live  all  to- 
gether so  happy  with  their  remaining  parent,  that  the  hearts 
of  their  lovers  are  ever  broken  with  the  prospect  (so  inau- 
spicious to  their  hopes)  of  such  uninterrupted  and  provoking 
home-comfort.  Gallant  girls  !  each  a  victim  worthy  of  Iphi- 
genia  ! 

I  do  not  know  what  business  I  have  to  be  present  in  solemn 
places.  I  cannot  divest  me  of  an  unseasonable  disposition  to 
levity  upon  the  most  awful  occasions.  I  was  never  cut  out 
for  a  public  functionary.  Ceremony  and  I  have  long  shaken 
hands ;  but  I  could  not  resist  the  importunities  of  the  young 
lady's  father,  whose  gout  unhappily  confined  him  at  home, 
to  act  as  parent  on  this  occasion,  and  give  away  the  bride. 
Something  ludicrous  occurred  to  me  at  this  most  serious  of  all 
moments — a  sense  of  my  unfitness  to  have  the  disposal,  even 
in  imagination,  of  the  sweet  young  creature  beside  me.  I 
fear  I  was  betrayed  to  some  lightness,  for  the  awful  eye  of 
the  parson — and  the  rector's  eye  of  Saint  Mildred's  in  the 
poultry  is  no  trifle  of  a  rebuke — was  upon  me  in  an  instant, 
souring  my  incipient  jest  to  the  tristful  severities  of  a  funeral. 

This  was  the  only  misbehaviour  which  I  can  plead  to  upon 
this  solemn  occasion,  unless  what  was  objected  to  me  after 
the  ceremony  by  one  of  the  handsome  Miss  T 's,  be  ac- 
counted a  solecism.  She  was  pleased  to  say  that  she  had 
never  seen  a  gentleman  before  me  give  away  a  bride  in  black. 
Now  black  has  been  my  ordinary  apparel  so  long — indeed,  I 
take  it  to  be  the  proper  costume  of  an  author — the  stage  sanc- 
tions it — that  to  have  appeared  in  some  lighter  colour  would 
have  raised  more  mirth  at  my  expense  than  the  anomaly  had 
created  censure.  But  I  could  perceive  that  the  bride's  moth- 
er, and  some  elderly  ladies  present,  (God  bless  them  !)  would 
have  been  well  content  if  I  had  come  in  any  other  colour 
than  that.  But  I  got  over  the  omen  by  a  lucky  apologue, 
which  I  remembered  out  of  Pilpay,  or  some  Indian  author,  of 


262  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

all  the  birds  being  invited  to  the  linnets'  wedding,  at  which, 
when  all  the  rest  came  in  their  gayest  feathers,  the  raven 
alone  apologized  for  his  cloak  because  "  he  had  no  other." 
This  tolerably  reconciled  the  elders.  But  with  the  young 
people  all  was  merriment,  and  shakings  of  hands,  and  con- 
gratulations, and  kissing  away  the  bride's  tears,  and  kissings 
from  her  in  return,  till  a  young  lady,  who  assumed  some 
experience  in  these  matters,  having  worn  the  nuptial  bands 
some  four  or  five  weeks  longer  than  her  friend,  rescued  her, 
archly  observing,  with  half  an  eye  upon  the  bridegroom,  that 
at  this  rate  she  would  have  "  none  left." 

My  friend  the  admiral  was  in  fine  wig  and  buckle  on  this 
occasion — a  striking  contrast  to  his  usual  neglect  of  personal 
appearance.  He  did  not  once  shove  up  his  borrowed  locks 
(his  custom  ever  at  his  morning  studies)  to  betray  the  few 
gray  stragglers  of  his  own  beneath  them.  He  wore  an  aspect 
of  thoughtful  satisfaction.  I  trembled  for  the  hour,  which  at 
length  approached,  when,  after  a  protracted  breakfast  of  three 
hours — if  stores  of  cold  fowls,  tongues,  hams,  botargoes,  dried 
fruits,  wines,  cordials,  &c,  can  deserve  so  meager  an  appella- 
tion— the  coach  was  announced  which  was  come  to  carry  off 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  for  a  season,  as  custom  has  sensibly 
ordained,  into  the  country ;  upon  which  design,  wishing  them 
a  felicitous  journey,  let  us  return  to  the  assembled  guests 

"  As  when  a  well-graced  actor  leaves  the  stage, 
The  eyes  of  men 
Are  idly  bent  on  him  that  enters  next," 

so  idly  did  we  bend  our  eyes  upon  one  another,  when  the 
chief  performers  in  the  morning's  pageant  had  vanished. 
None  told  his  tale.  None  sipped  her  glass.  The  poor  ad- 
miral made  an  effort — it  was  not  much.  I  had  anticipated  so 
far.  Even  the  infinity  of  full  satisfaction,  that  had  betrayed 
itself  through  the  prim  looks  and  quiet  deportment  of  his  lady, 
began  to  wane  into  something  of  misgiving.  No  one  knew 
whether  to  take  their  leaves  or  stay.  We  seemed  assembled 
upon  u.  silly  occasion.  In  this  crisis,  between  tarrying  and 
departure,  I  must  do  justice  to  a  foolish  talent  of  mine,  which 
had  otherwise  like  to  have  brought  me  into  disgrace  in  the 
forepart  of  the  day;  I  mean  a  power,  in  any  emergency,  of 
thinking  and  giving  vent  to  all  manner  of  strange  nonsense. 
In  this  awkward  dilemma  I  found  it  sovereign.  I  rattled  off 
some  of  my  most  excellent  absurdities.  All  were  willing  to 
be  relieved,  at  any  expense  of  reason,  from  the  pressure  of  the 
intolerable  vacuum  which  had  succeeded  to  the  morning  bustle. 
By  this  means  1  was  fortunate  in  keeping  together  the  better 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  2G3 

part  of  the  company  to  a  late  hour :  ^nd  a  rubber  of  whist 
(the  admiral's  favourite  game)  with  some  rare  strokes  of  chance 
as  well  as  skill,  which  came  opportunely  on  his  side — length- 
ened out  till  midnight — dismissed  the  old  gentleman  at  last  to 
his  bed  with  comparatively  easy  spirits. 

I  have  been  at  my  old  friend's  various  times  since.  I  do 
not  know  a  visiting-place  where  every  guest  is  so  perfectly  at 
his  ease  ;  nowhere,  where  harmony  is  so  strangely  th<'  result 
of  confusion.  Everybody  is  at  cross  purposes,  yet  the  effect 
is  so  much  better  than  uniformity.  Contradictory  orders  ; 
servants  pulling  one  way  ;  master  and  mistress  driving  some 
other,  yet  both  diverse  ;  visiters  huddled  up  in  corners  ;  chairs 
unsymmetrized  ;  candles  disposed  by  chance  ;  meals  at  odd 
hours,  tea  and  supper  at  once,  or  the  latter  preceding  the  for- 
mer; the  host  and  the  guest  conferring,  yet  each  upon  a  dif- 
ferent topic,  each  understanding  himself,  neither  trying  to  under- 
stand or  hear  the  other;  draughts  and  politics,  chess  and  political 
economy,  cards  and  conversation  on  nautical  matters,  going  on 
at  once,  without  the  hope,  or,  indeed,  the  wish,  of  distinguishing 
them,  make  it  altogether  the  most  perfect  concordia  discors  you 
shall  meet  with.  Yet  somehow  the  old  house  is  not  quite  what  it 
should  be.  The  admiral  still  enjoys  his  pipe,  but  he  has  no 
Miss  Emily  to  fill  it  for  him.  The  instrument  stands  where 
it  stood,  but  she  is  gone  whose  delicate  touch  could  some- 
times for  a  short  minute  appease  the  warring  elements.  He 
has  learned,  as  Marvel  expresses  it,  to  "make  his  destiny  his 
choice."  He  bears  bravely  up.  but  he  does  not  come  out  with 
his  flashes  of  wild  wit  so  thick  as  formerly.  His  sea-songs 
seldomer  escape  him.  His  wife,  too,  looks  as  if  she  wanted 
some  younger  body  to  scold  and  set  to  rights.  We  all  miss  a 
junior  presence.  It  is  wonderful  how  one  young  maiden 
freshens  up  and  keeps  green  the  paternal  roof.  Old  and  young 
seem  to  have  an  interest  in  her,  so  long  as  she  is  not  abso- 
lutely disposed  of.  The  youthfulness  of  the  house  is  flown, 
Emily  is  married. 


THE  CHILD  ANGEL. 

A    DREAM. 


I  chanced  upon  the  prettiest,  oddest,  fantastical  thing  of  a 
dream  the  other  night,  that  you  shall  hear  of.      I  had  been 


264  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

reading  the  "  Loves  of  the  Angels,"  and  went  to  bed  with  my 
head  full  of  speculations,  suggested  by  that  extraordinary 
legend.  It  had  given  birth  to  innumerable  conjectures  ;  and,  I 
remember,  the  last  waking  thought  which  I  gave  expression 
to  on  my  pillow  was  a  sort  of  wonder,  "  what  could  come  of 
it." 

I  was  suddenly  transported,  how  or  whither  I  could  scarcely 
make  out — but  to  some  celestial  region.  It  was  not  the  real 
heavens  neither — not  the  downright  Bible  heaven — but  a  kind 
of  fairy-land  heaven,  about  which  a  poor  human  fancy  may 
have  leave  to  sport  and  air  itself,  I  will  hope,  without  pre- 
sumption. 

Methought — what  wild  things  dreams  are  ! — I  was  presen 
— at  what  would  you  imagine  ? — at  an  angel's  gossiping. 

Whence  it  came,  or  how  it  came,  or  who  bid  it  come,  or 
whether  it  came  purely  of  its  own  head,  neither  you  nor  I 
know — but  there  lay,  sure  enough,  wrapped  in  its  little  cloudy 
swaddling-bands — a  child  angel. 

Smvthreads— filmy  beams — ran  through  the  celestial  na- 
pery  of  what  seemed  its  princely  cradle.  All  the  winged 
orders  hovered  round,  watching  when  the  new-born  should 
open  its  yet  closed  eyes ;  which,  when  it  did,  first  one,  and 
then  the  other — with  a  solicitude  and  apprehension,  yet  not 
such  as,  stained  with  fear,  dim  the  expanding  eyelids  of  mortal 
infants,  but  as  if  to  explore  its  path  in  those  its  unhereditary 
palaces — what  an  inextinguishable  titter  that  time  spared  not 
celestial  visages !  Nor  wanted  there  to  my  seeming — oh 
the  inexplicable  simpleness  of  dreams  ! — bowls  of  that  cheer- 
ing nectar, 

"  Which  mortals  caudle  call  below." 

Nor  were  wanting  faces  of  female  ministrants — stricken  in 
years,  as  it  might  seem — so  dexterous  were  those  heavenly 
attendants  to  counterfeit  kindly  similitudes  of  earth,  to  greet 
with  terrestrial  child-rites  the  young  present  which  earth  had 
made  to  heaven. 

Then  were  celestial  harpings  heard,  not  in  full  symphony,  as 
those  by  which  the  spheres  are  tutored,  but,  as  loudest  in- 
struments on  earth  speak  oftentimes,  muffled  ;  so  to  accommo- 
date their  sound  the  better  to  the  weak  ears  of  the  imperfect- 
born.  And,  with  the  noise  of  those  subdued  poundings,  the 
angelet  sprang  forth,  fluttering  its  rudiments  of  pinions— but 
forthwith  flagged  and  was  recovered  into  the  arms  of  those 
full-winged  angels.  And  a  wonder  it  was  to  see  how,  as 
years  went  round  in  heaven — a  year  in  dreams  is  as  a  day — 
continually  its  white  shoulders  put  forth  buds  of  wings,  but, 


EM*?S   DP   lua.  265 

wanting  the  perfect  angelic  nutriment,  anon  was  shorn  of  its 
aspiring,  and  fell  fluttefing — still  caught  by  angel  hands — for 
ever  to  put  forth  shoots,  and  to  fall  fluttering,  because  its  birth 
was  not  of  the  unmixed  vigour  of  heaven. 

And  a  name  was  given  to  the  babe  angel,  and  it  was  to  be 
called  Ge-Urania,  because  its  production  was  of  earth  and 
heaven. 

And  it  could  not  taste  of  death,  by  reason  of  its  adoption 
into  immortal  palaces :  but  it  was  to  know  weakness  and  re- 
liance, and  the  shadow  of  human  imbecility  ;  and  it  went  with 
a  lame  gait ;  but  in  its  goings  it  exceeded  all  mortal  children 
in  grace  and  swiftness.  Then  pity  first  sprang  up  in  angelic 
bosoms  ;  and  yearnings  (like  the  human)  touched  them  at  the 
sight  of  the  immortal  lame  one. 

And  with  pain  did  then  first  those  intuitive  essences,  with 
pain  and  strife  to  their  natures,  (not  grief,)  put  back  their  bright 
intelligences,  and  reduce  their  ethereal  minds,  schooling  them 
to  degrees  and  slower  processes,  so  to  adapt  their  lessons  to 
the  gradual  illumination  (as  must  needs  be)  of  the  half-earth- 
born  ;  and  what  intuitive  notices  they  could  not  repel,  (by  rea- 
son that  their  nature  is,  to  know  all  things  at  once,)  the  half- 
heavenly  novice,  by  the  better  part  of  its  nature,  aspired  to 
receive  into  its  understanding;  so  that  humility  and  aspira- 
tion went  on  even-paced  in  the  instruction  of  the  glorious  am- 
phibium. 

But,  by  reason  that  mature  humanity  is  too  gross  to  breathe 
the  air  of  that  super-subtile  region,  its  portion  was,  and  is,  to 
be  a  child  for  ever. 

And  because  the  human  part  of  it  might  not  press  into  the 
heart  and  inwards  of  the  palace  of  its  adoption,  those  full-na- 
tured  angels  tended  it  by  turns  in  the  purlieus  of  the  palace, 
where  were  shady  groves  and  rivulets,  like  this  green  earth 
from  which  it  came  :  so  Love,  with  voluntary  humility,  waited 
upon  the  entertainment  of  the  new-adopted. 

And  myriads  of  years  rolled  round,  (in  dreams  time  is  noth- 
ing,) and  still  it  kept,  and  is  to  keep,  perpetual  childhood,  and 
is  the  tutelar  genius  of  childhood  upon  earth,  and  still  goes 
lame  and  lovely. 

By  the  banks  of  the  river  Pison  is  seen,  lone-sitting  by  the 
grave  of  the  terrestrial  Adah,  whom  the  angel  Nadir  loved,  a 
child  ;  but  not  the  same  which  I  saw  in  heaven.  A  mournful 
hue  overcasts  its  lineaments  ;  nevertheless,  a  correspondence 
is  between  the  child  by  the  grave  and  that  celestial  orphan 
whom  I  saw  above;  and  the  dimness  of  the  grief  upon  the 
heavenly,  is  a  shadow  or  emblem  of  that  which  stains  the 
23  M 


266  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

beauty  of  the  terrestrial.     And  this  correspondence  is  not  to 
be  understood  but  by  dreams. 

And  in  the  archives  of  heaven  I  had  grace  to  read,  how  that 
once  the  angel  Nadir,  being  exiled  from  his  place  for  mortal 
passion,  upspringing  on  the  wings  of  parental  love,  (such 
power  had  parental  love  for  a  moment  to  suspend  the  else  ir- 
revocable law,)  appeared  for  a  brief  instant  in  his  station  ;  and, 
depositing  a  wondrous  birth,  straightway  disappeared,  and  the 
palaces  knew  him  no  more.  And  this  charge  was  the  self- 
same babe,  who  goeth  lame  and  lovely — but  Adah  sleepeth 
by  the  river  Pison. 


OLD  CHINA. 

I  have  an  almost  feminine  partiality  for  old  china.  When 
I  go  to  see  any  great  house,  I  inquire  for  the  china-closet,  and 
next  for  the  picture-gallery.  I  cannot  defend  the  order  of 
preference,  but  by  saying,  that  we  have  all  some  taste  or  other, 
of  too  ancient  a'  date  to  admit  of  our  remembering  distinctly 
that  it  was  an  acquired  one.  I  can  call  to  mind  the  first  play 
and  the  first  exhibition  that  I  was  taken  to  ;  but  I  am  not  con- 
scious of  a  time  when  china  jars  and  saucers  were  introduced 
into  my  imagination. 

I  had  no  repugnance  then — why  should  I  now  have  I — to 
those  little,  lawless,  azure-tinctured  grotesques,  that  under 
the  notion  of  men  and  women  float  about,  uncircumscribed  by 
any  element,  in  that  world  before  perspective — a  china  tea- 
cup. 

I  like  to  see  my  old  friends — whom  distance  cannot  dimin- 
ish— figuring  up  in  the  air,  (so  they  appear  to  our  optics,)  yet 
on  terra  fir  ma  still — for  so  we  must  in  courtesy  interpret  that 
speck  of  deeper  blue — which  the  decorous  artist,  to  prevent 
absurdity,  had  made  to  spring  up  beneath  their  sandals. 

I  love  the  men  with  women's  faces,  and  the  women,  if  pos- 
sible, with  still  more  womanish  expressions.  , 

Here  is  a  young  and  courtly  mandarin,  handing  tea  to  a 
lady  from  a  salver — two  miles  off.  See  how  distance  seems 
to  set  off  respect !  And  here  the  same  lady,  or  another — for 
likeness  is  identity  on  teacups — is  stepping  into  a  little  fairy 
boat,  moored  on  the  hither  side  of  this  calm  garden  river,  with 
a  dainty  mincing  foot,  which  in  a  right  angle  of  incidence  (as 
angles  go  in  our  world)  must  infallibly  land  her  in  the  midst 


ESSAYS    OF    EUA.  267 

of  a  flowery  mead — a  furlong  off  on  the  other  side  of  the  same 
strange  stream  ! 

Farther  on — if  far  or  near  can  be  predicated  of  their  world 
— see  horses,  trees,  pagodas,  dancing  the  hays. 

Here — a  cow  and  rabbit  couchant,  and  coextensive — so 
objects  show,  seen  through  the  lucid  atmosphere  of  fine  Ca- 
thay. 

1  w;is  pointing  out  to  my  cousin  last  evening,  over  our 
Hyson,  (which  we  are  oldfashioncd  enough  to  drink  unmixed 
still  of  an  afternoon,)  some  of  these  spe.ciosa  miracula  upon  a 
set  of  extraordinary  old. blue  china  (a  recent  purchase)  which 
we  were  now  for  the  first  time  using ;  and  could  not  help  re- 
marking how  favourable  circumstances  had  been  to  us  of  late 
years,  that  we  could  afford  to  please  the  eye  sometimes  with 
trifles  of  this  sort — when  a  passing  sentiment  seemed  to  over- 
shade  the  brows  of  my  companion.  I  am  quick  at  detecting 
these  summer  clouds  in  Bridget. 

'k  I  wish  the  good  old  times  would  come  again,"  she  said, 
M  when  we  were  not  quite  so  rich.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  want 
to  be  poor ;  but  there  was  a  middle  state" — so  she  was 
pleased  to  ramble  on — "  in  which  I  am  sure  we  were  a  great 
deal  happier.  A  purchase  is  but  a  purchase,  now  that  you 
have  money  enough  and  to  spare.  Formerly  it  used  to  be  a 
triumph.  When  we  coveted  a  cheap  luxury  (and,  oh !  how 
much  ado  I  had  to  get  you  to  consent  in  those  times  !)  we 
were  used  to  have  a  debate  two  or  three  days  before,  and  to 
weigh  the  for  and  against,  and  think  what  we  might  spare 
it  out  of,  and  what  saving  we  could  hit  upon,  that  should  be  an 
equivalent.  A  thing  was  worth  buying  then,  when  we  felt  the 
money  that  we  paid  for  it. 

"  Do  you  remember  the  brown  suit  which  you  made  to  hang 
upon  you  till  all  your  friends  cried  shame  upon  you,  it  grew 
so  threadbare — and  all  because  of  that  folio  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  which  you  dragged  home  late  at  night  from  Barker's 
in  Covent  Garden  ?  Do  you  remember  how  we  eyed  it  for 
weeks  before  we  could  make  up  our  minds  to  the  purchase, 
and  had  not  come  to  a  determination  till  it  was  near  ten  o'clock 
of  the  Saturday  night,  when  you  set  off  from  Islington,  fearing 
you  should  be  too  late — and  when  the  old  bookseller,  with  some 
grumbling,  opened  his  shop,  and  by  the  twinkling  taper  (for  he 
w;is  setting  bedwards)  lighted  out  the  relic  from  his  dusty  treas- 
ures— and  when  you  lugged  it  home,  wishing  it  were  twice  as 
cumbersome — and  when  you  presented  it  to  me — and  when  we 
were  exploring  the  perfectness  of  it  (collating  you  called  it) 
— and  while  I  was  repairing  some  of  the  loose  leaves  with 
paste,  which  your  impatience  would  not  suffer  to  be  left  till  day- 
M  2 


2G8  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

break — was  there  no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor  man?  or  can 
those  neat  black  clothes  which  you  wear  now,  and  are  so 
careful  to  keep  brushed,  since  we  have  become  rich  and  fini- 
cal, give  you  half  the  honest  vanity  with  which  you  flaunted 
it  about  in  that  overworn  suit — your  old  corbeau — for  four  or 
five  weeks  longer  than  you  should  have  done,  to  pacify  your 
conscience  for  the  mighty  sum  of  fifteen — or  sixteen  shillings 
was  it? — a  great  affair  we  thought  it  then — which  you  had 
lavished  on  the  old  folio.  Now  you  can  afford  to  buy  any 
book  that  pleases  you,  but  I  do  not  see  that  you  ever  bring  me 
home  any  nice  old  purchases  now. 

"  When  you  came  home  with  twenty  apologies  for  laying- 
out  a  less  number  of  shillings  upon  that  print  after  Lionardo, 
which  we  christened  the  '  Lady  Blanch ;'  when  you  looked  at 
the  purchase,  and  thought  of  the  money — and  thought  of  the 
money,  and  looked  again  at  the  picture — was  there  no  pleas- 
ure in  being  a  poor  man?  Now,  you  have  nothing  to  do  but 
to  walk  into  Colnaghi's,  and  buy  a  wilderness  of  Lionardos. 
Yet  do  you  ? 

"  Then,  do  you  remember  our  pleasant  walks  to  Enfield, 
and  Potter's  Bar,  and  Waltham,  when  we  had  a  holyday — 
holydays,  and  all  other  fun,  are  gone,  now  we  are  rich — and 
the  little  hand-basket  in  which  I  used  to  deposite  our  day's  fare 
of  savoury  cold  lamb  and  salad — and  how  you  would  pry  about 
at  noontide  for  some  decent  house,  where  we  might  go  in,  and 
produce  our  store — only  paying  for  the  ale  that  you  must  call 
for — and  speculate  upon  the  looks  of  the  landlady,  and  wheth- 
er she  was  likely  to  allow  us  a  table-cloth — and  wish  for  such 
another  honest  hostess  as  Izaak  Walton  has  described  many 
a  one  on  the  pleasant  banks  of  the  Lea,  when  he  went  a  fish- 
ing— and  sometimes  they  would  prove  obliging  enough,  and 
sometimes  they  would  look  grudgingly  upon  us — but  we  had 
cheerful  looks  still  for  one  another,  and  would  eat  our  plain 
food  savourily,  scarcely  grudging  Piscator  his  Trout  Hall  ? 
Now — when  we  go  out  a  day's  pleasuring,  which  if  seldom 
moreover,  we  ride  part  of  the  way — and  go  into  a  fine  inn, 
and  order  the  best  of  dinners,  never  debating  the  expense — 
which,  after  all,  never  has  half  the  relish  of  those  chance 
country  snaps,  when  we  were  at  the  mercy  of  uncertain  usage 
and  a  precarious  welcome. 

"  You  are  too  proud  to  see  a  play  anywhere  now  but  in  the 
pit.  Do  you  remember  where  it  was  we  used  to  sit  when  we 
saw  the  Battle  of  Hexham,  and  the  Surrender  of  Calais,  and 
Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  in  the  Children  in  the  Wood — ■ 
when  we  squeezed  out  our  shillings  apiece  to  sit  three  or 
four  times  in  a  season  in  the  one-shilling  gallery — where  you 


ESSAYS    OK    KLIA.  269 

felt  all  the  time  that  you  ought  not  to  have  brought  me — and 
more  strongly  I  felt  obligation  to  you  for  having  brought  me 
— and  the  pleasure  was  the  better  for  a  little  shame — and 
when  the.  curtain  drew  up,  what  cared  we  for  our  place  in  the 
house,  or  what  mattered  it  where  we  were  sitting,  when  our 
thoughts  were  with  Rosalind  in  Arden,  or  with  Viola  at  the 
court  of  Illyria  ?  You  used  to  say  that  the  gallery  was  the 
best  place  of  all  for  enjoying  a  play  socially — that  the  relish 
of  such  exhibitions  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  infrequency 
of  going — that  the  company  we  met  there,  not  being  in  gen- 
eral readers  of  plays,  were  obliged  to  attend  the  more,  and  did 
attend,  to  what  was  going  on  on  the  stage — because  a  word 
lost  would  have  been  a  chasm  which  it  was  impossible  for 
them  to  fill  up,  With  such  reflections  we  consoled  our  pride 
then — and  I  appeal  to  you  whether,  as  a  woman,  I  met  gen- 
erally with  less  attention  and  accommodation  than  I  have 
done  since  in  more  expensive  situations  in  the  house  ?  The 
getting  in,  indeed,  and  the  crowding  up  those  inconvenient 
staircases,  was  bad  enough — but  there  was  still  a  law  of  ci- 
vility to  woman  recognised  to  quite  as  great  an  extent  as  we 
ever  found  in  the  other  passages — and  how  a  little  difficulty 
overcome  heightened  the  snug  seat  and  the  play  afterward ! 
Now  we  can  only  pay  our  money,  and  walk  in.  You  cannot 
see,  you  say,  in  the  galleries  now.  I  am  sure  we  saw,  and 
heard  too,  well  enough  then — but  sight,  and  all,  I  think,  is 
gone  with  our  poverty. 

"  There  was  pleasure  in  eating  strawberries  before  they 
became  quite  common — in  the  first  dish  of  peas,  while  they 
were  yet  dear — to  have  them  for  a  nice  supper,  a  treat.  What 
treat  can  we  have  now?  If  we  were  to  treat  ourselves  now 
— that  is,  to  have  dainties  a  little  above  our  means,  it  Avould 
be  selfish  and  wicked.  It  is  the  very  little  more  that  we  al- 
low ourselves  beyond  what  the  actual  poor  can  get  at,  that 
makes  what  I  call  a  treat — when  two  people  living  together, 
as  wc  have  done,  now  and  then  indulge  themselves  in  a  cheap 
luxury,  which  both  like  ;  while  each  apologizes,  and  is  wil- 
ling to  take  both  halves  of  the  blame  to  his  single  share.  I 
see  no  harm  in  people  making  much  of  themselves  in  that 
sense  of  the  word.  It  may  give  them  a  hint  how  to  make 
much  of  others.  But  now — what  I  mean  by  the  word — wc 
never  do  make  much  of  ourselves.  None  but  the  poor  can  do  it. 
I  do  not  mean  the  veriest  poor  of  all,  but  persons  as  we  were, 
just  above  poverty. 

il  I  know  what  you  were  going  to  say,  that  it  is  mighty 
pleasant  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  make  all  meet — and  much 
ado  we  used  to  have  every  thirty-first  night  of  December  to 
23* 


270  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

account  for  our  exceedings — many  a  long  face  did  you 
make  over  your  puzzled  accounts,  and  in  contriving  to  make 
it  out  how  we  bad  spent  so  much — or  that  we  had  not  spent 
so  much — or  that  it  was  impossible  we  should  spend  so  much 
next  year — and  still  we  found  our  slender  capital  decreasing 
— but  then,  between  ways,  and  projects,  and  compromises  of 
one  sort  or  another,  and  talk  of  curtailing  this  charge,  and 
doing  without  that  for  the  future — and  the  hope  that  youth 
brings,  and  laughing  spirits,  (in  which  you  were  never  poor 
till  now,)  we  pocketed  up  our  loss,  and  in  conclusion,  with 
'  lusty  brimmers,'  (as  you  used  to  quote  it  out  of  hearty,  cheer- 
ful Mr.  Cotton,  as  you  call  him,)  we  used  to  welcome  in  the 
'  coming  guest.'  Now  we  have  no  reckoning  at  all  at  the 
end  of  the  old  year — no  flattering  promises  about  the  new 
year  doing  better  for  us." 

Bridget  is  so  sparing  of  her  speech  on  most  occasions,  that 
when  she  gets  into  a  rhetorical  vein,  I  am  careful  how  I  in- 
terrupt it.  I  could  not  help,  however,  smiling  at  the  phantom 
of  wealth  which  her  dear  imagination  had  conjured  up  out  of 
a  clear  income  of  poor — hundred  pounds  a  year.  "  It  is  true 
we  were  happier  when  we  were  poorer,  but  we  were  also 
younger,  my  cousin.  I  am  afraid  we  must  put  up  with  the 
excess,  for  if  we  were  to  shake  the  superflux  into  the  sea,  we 
should  not  much  mend  ourselves.  That  we  had  much  to 
struggle  with,  as  we  grew  up  together,  we  have  reason  to  be 
most  thankful.  It  strengthened,  and  knit  our  compact  closer. 
We  could  never  have  been  what  we  have  been  to  each  other, 
if  we  had  always  had  the  sufficiency  which  you  now  complain 
of.  The  resisting  power — those  natural  dilations  of  the 
youthful  spirit,  which  circumstances  cannot  straiten — with  us 
are  long  since  passed  away.  Competence  to  age  is  supple- 
mentary youth,  a  sorry  supplement  indeed,  but  I  fear  the  best 
that  is  to  be  had.  "We  must  ride,  where  we  formerly  walked  : 
live  better,  and  lie  softer — and  shall  be  wise  to  do  so — than 
we  had  means  to  do  in  those  good  old  days  you  speak  of. 
Yet,  could  those  days  return — could  you  and  I  once  more  walk 
our  thirty  miles  a  day — could  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  again 
be  young,  and  you  and  I  be  young  to  see  them — could  the 
good  old  one-shilling  gallery  days  return — they  are  dreams, 
my  cousin,  now — but  could  you  and  I  at  this  moment,  instead 
of  this  quiet  argument  by  our  well-carpeted  fireside,  sitting 
on  this  luxurious  sofa — be  once  more  struggling  up  those  in- 
convenient staircases,  pushed  about,  and  squeezed,  and  el- 
bowed by  the  poorest  rabble  of  poor  gallery  scramblers — could 
I  once  more  hear  those  anxious  shrieks  of  yours — and  the 
delicious   Thank  God,  we  are  safe,  which  always  followed 


ESSAYS    OF    LLIA.  271 

when  the  topmost  stair,  conquered,  let  in  the  first  light  of  the 
whole  cheerful  theatre  down  beneath  us — 1  know  not  the 
fathom  line  that  ever  touched  a  descent  so  deep  as  I  would 
he   willing  to  bury  more  wealth  in  than  Croesus  had,  or  the 

great  Jew  R is  supposed  to  have,  to  purchase  it.      And 

now  do  just  look  at  that  merry  little  Chinese  waiter  holding 
an  umbrella,  big  enough  lor  a  bed-tester,  over  the  head  of  that 
pretty,  insipid,  half-Madonaish  chit  of  a  lady  in  that  very  blue 
summer-house." 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  DRUNKARD. 

Deiiortations  from  the  use  of  strong  liquors  have  been  the 
favourite  topic  of  sober  declaimers  in  all  ages,  and  have  been 
received  with  abundance  of  applause  by  water-drinking  critics. 
But  with  the  patient  himself,  the  man  that  is  to  be  cured,  un- 
fortunately, their  sound  has  seldom  prevailed.  Yet  the  evil  is 
acknowledged  ;  the  remedy  simple.  Abstain.  No  force  can 
oblige  a  man  to  raise  the  glass  to  his  head  against  his  will. 
'Tis  as  easy  as  not  to  steal,  not  to  tell  lies. 

Alas !  the  hand  to  pilfer,  and  the  tongue  to  bear  false  wit- 
ness, have  no  constitutional  tendency.  These  are  actions  in- 
different to  them.  At  the  first  instance  of  the  reformed  will, 
they  can  be  brought  off  without  a  murmur.  The  itching  finger 
is  but  a  figure  in  speech,  and  the  tongue  of  the  liar  can  with 
the  same  natural  delight  give  forth  useful  truths,  with  which 
it  has  been  accustomed  to  scatter  their  pernicious  contraries. 
But  when  a  man  has  commenced  sot — 

Oh  pause,  thou  sturdy  moralist,  thou  person  of  stout  nerves 
and  a  strong  head,  whose  liver  is  happily  untouched,  and  ere 
thy  gorge  nseth  at  the  namr.  which  1  have  written,  first  learn 
what  the  thing  is  ;  how  much  of  compassion,  how  much  of 
human  allowance,  thou  mayst  virtuously  mingle  with  thy  dis- 
approbation. Trample  not  on  the  ruins  of  a  man.  Exact  not, 
under  so  terrible  a  penalty  as  infamy,  a  resuscitation  from  a 
state  of  death  almost  as  real  as  that  from  which  Lazarus  rose 
not  but  by  a  miracle. 

n  a  reformation,  and  custom  will  make  it  easy.  But 
what  if  the  beginning  be  dreadful ;  the  first  steps  not  like 
climbing  a  mountain,  but  going  through  fire  ?  what  if  the  whole 
system  must  undergo  a  change  violent  as  that  which  we  con- 
ceive of  the  mutation  of  form  in  some  insects?  what  if  a  pFO- 


272  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

cess  comparable  to  flaying  alive  be  to  be  gone  through  ?  is  the 
weakness  that  sinks  under  such  struggles  to  be  confounded 
with  the  pertinacity  which  clings  to  other  vices,  which  have 
induced  no  constitutional  necessity,  no  engagement  of  the 
whole  victim,  body  and  soul  1 

I  have  known  one  in  that  state,  when  he  has  tried  to  abstain 
but  for  one  evening — though  the  poisonous  potion  had  long 
ceased  -to  bring  back  its  first  enchantments,  though  he  was 
sure  it  would  rather  deepen  his  gloom  than  brighten  it — in  the 
violence  of  the  struggle,  and  the  necessity  he  has  felt  of  get- 
ting rid  of  the  present  sensation  at  any  rate,  I  have  known  him 
to  scream  out,  to  cry  aloud,  for  the  anguish  and  pain  of  the  strife 
within  him. 

Why  should  I  hesitate  to  declare,  that  the  man  of  whom  I 
speak  is  myself?  I  have  no  puling  apology  to  make  to  man- 
kind. I  see  them  all  in  one  way  or  another  deviating  from  the 
pure  reason.  It  is  to  my  own  nature  alone  I  am  accountable 
for  the  wo  that  I  have  brought  upon  it. 

I  believe  that  there  are  constitutions,  robust  heads  and  iron 
insides,  whom  scarce  any  excesses  can  hurt ;  whom  brandy, 
(I  have  seen  them  drink  it  like  wine,)  at  all  events  whom 
wine,  taken  in  ever  so  plentiful  measure,  can  do  no  worse  in- 
jury to  than  just  to  muddle  their  faculties,  perhaps  never  very 
pellucid.  On  them  this  discourse  is  wasted.  They  would  but 
laugh  at  a  weak  brother,  who,  trying  his  strength  with  them, 
and  coming  off  foiled  from  the  contest,  would  fain  persuade 
them  that  such  agonistic  exercises  are  dangerous.  It  is  to  a 
verv  different  description  of  persons  I  speak.  It  is  to  the 
weak,  the  nervous;  to  those  who  feel  the  want  of  some  artifi- 
cial aid  to  raise  their  spirits  in  society  to  what  is  no  more 
than  the  ordinary  pitch  of  all  around  them  without  it.  This  is 
the  secret  of  our  drinking.  Such  must  fly  the  convivial  board 
in  the  first  instance,  if  they  do  not  mean  to  sell  themselves  for 
term  of  life. 

Twelve  years  ago  I  had  completed  my  six-and-twentieth 
year.  I  had  lived  from  the.  period  of  leaving  school  to  that 
time  pretty  much  in  solitude.  My  companions  were  chiefly 
books,  or  at  most  one  or  two  living  ones  of  my  own  book-lov- 
ing and  sober  stamp.  I  rose  early,  went  to  bed  betimes,  and 
the  faculties  which  God  had  given  me,  I  have  reason  to  think, 
did  not  rust  in  me  unused. 

About  that  time  I  fell  in  with  some  companions  of  a  differ- 
ent order.  They  were  men  of  boisterous  spirits,  sitters  up 
a-nights,  disputants,  drunken ;  yet  seemed  to  have  something 
noble  about  them.  We  dealt  about  the  wit,  or  what  passes 
for  it  after  midnight,  jovially.     Of  the  quality  called  fancy  I 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

certainly  possessed  a  larger  share  than  my  companions.  ]  m- 
couraged  by  their  applause,]  ael  up  Cm  a  professed  joker!     1, 

who  of  all  men  am  least  fitted  lor  such  an  occupation,  having, 
in  addition  to  the  greatest  difficulty  which  I  experience  at  all 
times  of  finding  words  to  express  my  meaning,  a  natural  ner- 
vous impediment  in  my  speech  ! 

Header,  it'  you  are  gifted  with  nerves  like  mine,  aspire  to 
any  character  but  that  of  a  wit.  When  you  find  a  tickling 
relish  upon  your  tongue  disposing  you  to  that  sort  of  conversa- 
tion, especially  if  you  find  a  preternatural  llow  of  ideas  setting 
in  upon  you  at  the  sight  of  a  bottle  and  fresh  glasses,  avoid 
giving  way  to  it  as  you  would  fly  your  greatest  destruction. 
If  you  cannot  crush  the  power  of  fancy,  or  that  within  you 
which  you  mistake  for  such,  divert  it,  give  it  some  other  play. 
Write  an  essay,  pen  a  character  or  description — but  not,  as  I 
do  now,  with  tears  trickling  down  your  cheeks. 

To  be  an  object  of  compassion  to  friends,  of  derision  to  foes  ; 
to  be  suspected  by  strangers,  stared  at  by  fools ;  to  be  es- 
teemed dull  when  you  cannot  be  witty,  to  be  applauded  for 
witty  when  you  know  that  you  have  been  dull ;  to  be  called 
upon  for  the  extemporaneous  exercise  of  that  faculty  which  no 
premeditation  can  give;  to  be  spurred  on  to  efforts  which  end 
in  contempt ;  to  be  set  on  to  provoke  mirth  which  procures  the 
procurer  hatred  ;  to  give  pleasure,  and  be  paid  with  squinting 
malice  ;  to  swallow  draughts  of  life-destroying  wine  which  are 
to  be  distilled  into  airy  breath  to  tickle  vain  auditors  ;  to  mort- 
gage miserable  morrows  for  nights  of  madness ;  to  waste 
whole  seas  of  time  upon  those  who  pay  it  back  in  little  incon- 
siderable drops  of  grudging  applause — are  the  wages  of  buf- 
foonery and  death. 

Time,  which  has  a  sure  stroke  at  dissolving  all  connexions 
which  have  no  solider  fastening  than  this  liquid  cement,  moro 
kind  to  me  than  my  own  taste  or  penetration,  at  length  opened 
my  eyes  to  the  supposed  qualities  of  my  first  friends.  No 
trace  of  them  is  left  but  in  the  vices  which  they  introduced, 
and  the  habits  they  infixed.  In  them  my  friends  survive  still 
and  exercise  ample  retribution  for  any  supposed  infidelity  thai 
I  may  have  been  guilty  of  towards  them. 

My  next  more  immediate  companions  were  and  are  per- 
sons of  such  intrinsic  and  felt  worth,  that  though  accidentally 
their  acquaintance  has  proved  pernicious  to  me,  I  do  not  know 
that  if  the  thing  were  to  do  over  again,  I  should  have  the 
courage  to  eschew  the  mischief  at  the  price  of  forfeiting  the 
benefit.  I  came  to  them  reeking  from  the  steams  of  my  late 
overheated  notions  of  companionship ;  and  the  slightest  fuel 
M3 


274  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

■which  they  unconsciously  afforded,  was  sufficient  to  feed  my 
old  fires  into  a  propensity. 

They  were  no  drinkers,  but,  one  from  professional  habits, 
and  another  from  a  custom  derived  from  his  father,  smoked  to- 
bacco. The  devil  could  not  have  devised  a  more  subtle  trap 
to  retake  a  backsliding  penitent.  The  transition  from  gulp- 
ing down  draughts  of  liquid  fire  to  puffing  out  innocuous  blasts 
of  dry  smoke,  was  so  like  cheating  him.  But  he  is  too  hard 
for  us  when  we  hope  to  commute.  He  beats  us  at  barter ; 
and  when  we  think  to  set  off  a  new  failing  against  an  old  in- 
firmity, 'tis  odds  but  he  puts  the  trick  upon  us  of  two  for  one. 
That  (comparatively)  white  devil  of  tobacco  brought  with  him 
in  the  end  seven  worse  than  himself. 

It  were  impertinent  to  carry  the  reader  through  all  the  pro- 
cesses by  which,  from  smoking  at  first  with  malt  liquor,  I  took 
my  degrees  through  thin  wines,  through  stronger  wine  and 
water,  through  small  punch,  to  those  juggling  compositions, 
which,  under  the  name  of  mixed  liquors,  slur  a  great  deal  of 
brandy  or  other  poison  under  less  and  less  water  continually, 
until  they  come  next  to  none,  and  so  to  none  at  all.  But  it  is 
hateful  to  disclose  the  secrets  of  my  Tartarus. 

I  should  repel  my  readers,  from  a  mere  incapacity  of  be- 
lieving me,  were  I  to  tell  them  what  tobacco  has  been  to  me, 
the  drudging  service  which  I  have  paid,  the  slavery  which  I 
have  vowed  to  it.  How,  when  I  have  resolved  to  quit  it,  a 
feeling  as  of  ingratitude  has  started  up  ;  how  it  has  put  on 
personal  claims  and  made  the  demands  of  a  friend  upon  me 
How  the  reading  of  it  casually  in  a  book,  as  where  Adams 
takes  his  whiff  in  the  chimney-corner  of  some  inn  in  Joseph 
Andrews,  or  Piscator  in  the  Complete  Angler  breaks  his  fast 
upon  a  morning  pipe  in  that  delicate  room  Piscatoribus  Sa- 
crum, has  in  a  moment  broken  down  the  resistance  of  weeks. 
How  a  pipe  was  ever  in  my  midnight  path  before  me,  till  the 
vision  forced  me  to  realize  it — how,  then,  its  ascending  vapours 
curled,  its  fragrance  lulled,  and  the  thousand  delicious  minister- 
ings  conversant  about  it,  employing  every  faculty,  extracted 
the  sense  of  pain.  How  from  illuminating  it  came  to  darken, 
from  a  quick  solace  it  turned  to  a  negative  relief,  thence  to  a 
restlessness  and  dissatisfaction,  thence  to  a  positive  misery. 
How,  even  now,  when  the  whole  secret  stands  confessed  in 
all  its  dreadful  truth  before  me,  I  feel  myself  linked  to  it  be- 
yond the  power  of  revocation.     Bone  of  my  bone — 

Persons  not  accustomed  to  examine  the  motives  of  their 
actions,  to  reckon  up  the  countless  nails  that  rivet  the  chains 
of  habit,  or  perhaps  being  bound  by  none  so  obdurate  as  those 
I  have  confessed  to,  may  recoil  from  this  as  from  an  over- 


E8SAYS    OF    ELTA.  UTft 

charged  picture.  But  what  short  of  such  a  bondage  is  it, 
which,  in  spite  of  protesting  friends,  ;i  weeping  wife,  and  a 
reprobating  world,  chains  down  many  a  poor  fellow,  of  no 
original  indisposition  to  goodness,  to  his  pipe  and  his  pot? 

1  have  .seen  a  print  alter  Correggio,  in  which  three  femalo 
figures  are  ministering  to  a  man  who  sits  fast  bound  at  the 
root  of  a  tree.  Sensuality  is  soothing  him,  Evil  Habit  is  nailing 
him  to  a  branch,  and  Repugnance  at  the  same  instant  of  time 
is  applying  a  snake  to  his  side.  In  his  face  is  feeble  delight, 
the  recollection  of  past  rather  than  perception  of  present 
pleasures,  languid  enjoyment  of  e^l  with  utter  imbecility  to 
good,  a  Sybaritic  effeminacy,  a  submission  to  bondage,  the 
springs  of  the  will  gone  down  like  a  broken  clock,  the  sin  and 
thr  Bufiering  coinstantaneous,  or  the  latter  forerunning  the 
former,  remorse  preceding  action — all  this  represented  in  one 
point  of  time.  When  I  saw  this,  I  admired  the  wonderful 
skill  of  the  painter.  But  when  I  went  away,  I  wept,  because 
I  thought  of  my  own  condition. 

Of  that  there  is  no  hope  that  it  should  ever  change.  The 
waters  have  gone  over  me.  But  out  of  the  black  depths, 
could  1  be  heard,  I  would  cry  out  to  all  those  who  have  but  set 
a  foot  in  the  perilous  flood  Could  the  youth,  to  whom  the 
flavour  of  his  first  wine  is  delicious  as  the  opening  scenes 
of  life  or  the  entering  upon  some  newly-discovered  paradise, 
look  Into  my  desolation,  and  be  made  to  understand  what  a 
dreary  thing  it  is  when  a  man  shall  feel  himself  going  down  a 
precipice  with  open  eyes  and  a  passive  will  —  to  see  his  de- 
struction, and  have  no  power  to  stop  it,  and  yet  to  feel  it  all 
the  way  emanating  from  himself;  to  perceive  all  goodness 
emptied  out  of  him,  and  vet  not  to  be  able  to  forget  a  time  when 
it  was  otherwise  ;  to  bear  about  rhe  piteous  spectacle  of  his 
own  self-ruins:  could  he  see  my  fevered  eye,  feverish  with 
last  night's  drinking,  and  feverishly  looking  for  this  night's 
repetition  of  the  folly  ;  could  he  feel  the  body  of  the  death  out 
of  which  I  cry  hourly  with  feebler  and  feebler  outcry  to  be  de- 
livered— it  were  enough  to  make  him  dash  the  sparkling  bev- 
_e  to  the  earth  in  all  the  pride  of  its  mantling  temptation; 
to  make  him  clasp  his  teeth — 

"  And  not  undo  'em 
To  suffer  wet  damnation  to  run  through  'em." 

Yea,  but  (methinks  I  hear  somebody  object)  if  sobriety  be 
that  tine  thing  you  would  have  us  to  understand,  if  the  com- 
forts of  a  cool  brain  are  to  be  preferred  to  that  state  of  heated 
excitement  which  you  describe  and  deplore,  what  hinders  iu 
your  own  instance  that  you  do  not  return  to  those  habits  from 


276  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

which  you  would  induce  others  never  to  swerve  ?  if  the  bles- 
sing be  worth  preserving,  is  it  not  worth  recovering? 

Recovering ! — Oh,  if  a  wish  could  transport  me  back  to  those 
days  of  youth,  when  a  draught  from  the  next  clear  spring 
could  slake  any  heats  which  summer  suns  and  youthful  exer- 
cise had  power  to  stir  up  in  the  blood,  how  gladly  would  I  re- 
turn to  thee,  pure  element,  the  drink  of  children,  and  of  child- 
like holy  hermit.  In  my  dreams  I  can  sometimes  fancy  thy 
cool  refreshment  purling  over  my  burning  tongue.  But  my 
waking  stomach  rejects  it.  That  which  refreshes  innocence 
only  makes  me  sick  and  faint. 

But  is  there  no  middle  way  between  total  abstinence  and  the 
excess  which  kills  you?  For  your  sake,  reader,  and  that  you 
may  never  attain  to  my  experience,  with  pain  1  must  utter  the 
dreadful  truth,  that  there  is  none,  none  that  I  can  find.  In 
my  stage  of  habit  (I  speak  not  of  habits  less  confirmed — for 
some  of  them  I  believe  the  advice  to  be  most  prudential)  in 
the  stage  which  1  have  reached,  to  stop  short  of  that  measure 
which  is  sufficient  to  draw  on  torpor  and  sleep,  the  benumbing, 
apoplectic  sleep  of  the  drunkard,  is  to  have  taken  none  at  all. 
The  pain  of  the  self-denial  is  all  one.  And  what  that  is,  I 
had  rather  the  reader  should  believe  on  my  credit,  than  know 
from  his  own  trial.  He  will  come  to  know  it,  whenever  he 
shall  arrive  at  that  state,  in  which,  paradoxical  as  it  may  ap- 
pear, reason  shall  only  visit  him  through  intoxication ;  for  it 
is  a  fearful  truth,  that  the  intellectual  faculties,  by  repeated 
acts  of  intemperance,  may  be  driven  from  their  orderly  sphere 
of  action,  their  clear  daylight  ministeries,  until  they  shall  be 
brought  at  last  to  depend,  for  the  faint  manifestations  of  their 
departing  energies,  upon  the  returning  periods  of  the  fatal 
madness  to  which  they  owe  their  devastation.  The  drinking 
man  is  never  less  himself  than  during  his  sober  intervals. 
Evil  is  so  far  his  good.* 

Behold  me,  then,  in  the  robust  period  of  life,  reduced  to  im- 
becility and  decay.  Hear  me  count  my  gains,  and  the  profits 
which  I  have  derived  from  the  midnight  cup. 

Twelve  years  ago  I  was  possessed  of  a  healthy  frame  of 
mind  and  body.  I  was  never  strong,  but  I  think  my  consti- 
tution (for  a  weak  one)  was  as  happily  exempt  from  the  ten- 
dency to  any  malady  as  it  was  possible  to  be.  I  scarce  knew 
what  it  was  to  ail  anything.     Now,  except  when  I  am  losing 

*  When  poor  M painted  his  last  picture,  with  a  pencil  in  one  trembling 

hand  and  a  glass  of  brandy  and  water  in  the  other,  his  lingers  owed  the  compara- 
tive steadiness,  with  which  they  were  enabled  to  go  through  their  task  in  an 
jr^/ifdect  manner,  to  a  temporary  firmness  derived  from  a  repetition  of  prac 
tices,  the  general  effect  of  which  had  shaken  both  them  and  him  so  terribly. 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  27] 

myself  in  a  sea  of  drink,  I  am  never  free  from  those  uneasy 
sensations  in  head  and  stomach,  which  are  so  much  worse  to 
bear  than  any  deiinite  pains  or  aches. 

At  that  time  I  was  seldom  in  bed  after  six  in  the  morning, 
summer  and  winter.  I  awoke  refreshed,  and  seldom  without 
some  merry  thoughts  in  my  head,  or  some  piece  of  a  song  to 
welcome  the  new-born  day.  Now,  the  first  feeling  which 
besets  me,  after  stretching  out  the  hours  of  reeumbence  t» 
their  last  possible  extent,  is  a  forecast  of  the  wearisome  da) 
that  lies  before  me,  with  a  secret  wish  that  I  could  have  lain 
on  still,  or  never  awaked. 

Life  itself,  my  waking  life,  has  much  of  the  confusion,  the 
trouble,  and  obscure  perplexity  of  an  ill  dream.  In  the  day- 
time I  stumble  upon  dark  mountains. 

Business,  which,  though  never  particularly  adapted  to  my 
nature,  yet  as  something  of  necessity  to  be  gone  through,  and 
therefore  best  undertaken  with  cheerfulness,  1  used  to  enter 
upon  with  some  degree  of  alacrity,  now  wearies,  affrights, 
perplexes  me.  I  fancy  all  sorts  of  discouragements,  and  am 
ready  to  give  up  an  occupation  which  gives  me  bread,  from  a 
harassing  conceit  of  incapacity.  The  slightest  commission 
given  me  by  a  friend,  or  any  small  duty  which  I  have  to  per- 
form for  myself,  as  giving  orders  to  a  tradesman,  &c,  haunts 
me  as  a  labour  impossible  to  be  got  through.  So  much  thn 
springs  of  action  are  broken. 

The  same  cowardice  attends  me  in  all  my  intercourse  with 
mankind.  I  dare  not  promise  that  a  friend's  honour,  or  his 
cause,  would  be  safe  in  my  keeping,  if  I  were  put  to  the  ex- 
pense of  any  manly  resolution  in  defending  it.  So  much  the 
springs  of  moral  action  are  deadened  within  me. 

My  favourite  occupations  in  times  past  now  cease  to  en- 
tertain. I  can  do  nothing  readily.  Application  for  ever  so 
short  a  time  kills  me.  This  poor  abstract  of  my  condition 
was  penned  at  Long  intervals,  with  scarcely  any  attempt  at 
connexion  of  thought,  which  is  now  difficult  to  me. 

The  noble  passages  which  formerly  delighted  me  in  history 
or  poetic  fiction,  now  only  draw  a  few  weak  tears,  allied  to 
dotage.  My  broken  and  dispirited  nature  seems  to  sink  be- 
fore anything  great  and  admirable. 

I  perpetually  catch  myself  in  tears,  for  any  cause,  or  none. 
It  is  inexpressible  how  much  this  infirmity  adds  to  a  sense  of 
shame,  and  a  general  feeling  of  deterioration. 

These  are  some  of  the  instances,  concerning  which  I  can 
say  with  truth,  that  it  was  not  always  so  with  me. 

Shall  I  lift  up  the  veil  of  my  weakness  any  further?  or  is 
this  disclosure  sufficient  ? 
5M 


273  ESSAYS    OF    ELIa. 

lam  a  poor  nameless  egotist,  who  have  no  vanity  to  consult 
by  these  confessions.  1  know  not  whether  I  shall  be  laughed 
at,  or  heard  seriously.  Such  as  they  are,  I  commend  them 
to  the  reader's  attention,  if  he  find  his  own  case  any  way 
touched.  I  have  told  him  what  I  am  come  to.  Let  him 
stop  in  time. 


POPULAR  FALLACIES. 
I. 

THAT  A  BULLY  IS  ALWAYS  A  COWARD. 

This  axiom  contains  a  principle  of  compensation,  which 
disposes  us  to  admit  the  truth  of  it.  But  there  is  no  safe 
trusting  to  dictionaries  and  definitions.  We  should  more 
willingly  fall  in  with  this  popular  language,  if  we  did  not  find 
brutality  sometimes  awkwardly  coupled  with  valour  in  the 
same  vocabulary.  The  comic  writers,  with  their  poetical 
justice,  have  contributed  not  a  little  to  mislead  us  upon  this 
point.  To  see  a  hectoring  fellow  exposed  and  beaten  upon 
the  stage  has  something  in  it  wonderfully  diverting.  Some 
people's  share  of  animal  spirits  is  notoriously  low  and  de- 
fective. It  has  not  strength  to  raise  a  vapour,  or  furnish  out 
the  wind  of  a  tolerable  bluster.  These  love  to  be  told  that 
huffing  is  no  part  of  valour.  The  truest  courage  with  diem 
is  that  which  is  the  least  noisy  and  obtrusive.  But  confront 
one  of  these  silent  heroes  with  the  swaggerer  of  real  life, 
and  his  confidence  in  the  theory  quickly  vanishes.  Preten- 
sions do  not  uniformly  bespeak  nonperformance.  A  modest, 
inoffensive  deportment  does  not  necessarily  imply  valour ; 
neither  does  the  absence  of  it  justify  us  in  denying  that  qual- 
ity. Hickman  wanted  modesty — we  do  not  mean  him  of 
Clarissa — but  who  ever  doubted  his  courage  1  Even  the 
poets — upon  whom  this  equitable  distribution  of  qualities 
should  be  most  binding — have  thought  it  agreeable  to  nature 
to  depart  from  the  rule  upon  occasion.  Harapha,  in  the 
"Agonistes,"  is  indeed  a  bully  upon  the  received  notions. 
Milton  has  made  Him  at  once  a  blusterer,  a  giant,  and  a  das- 
tard. But  Almanzor,  in  Dryden,  talks  of  driving  armies  singly 
before  him — and  does  it.  Tom  Brown  had  a  shrewder  insight 
into  this  kind  of  character  than  either  of  his  predecessors. 
He  divides  the  palm  more  equably,  and  allows  his  hero  a 


ESSAYS    OF    SUA.  270 

sort  of  dimidiate  pre-eminence: — "Bully  Dawson  kicked  by 
half  the  (own,  and  half  the  town  kicked  by  Bully  Dawson." 
This  was  true  distributive  justice. 


II. 

THAT  ILL-GOTTEN  GAIN  NEVER  PROSPERS.  m 

The  weakest  part  of  mankind  have  this  saying  commonest 
in  their  mouth.  It  is  the  trite  consolation  administered  to  the 
easy  dupe,  when  he  has  been  tricked  out  of  his  money  or  es- 
tate, that  the  acquisition  of  it  will  do  the  owner  no  good. 
But  the  rogues  of  this  world — the  prudenter  part  of  them,  at 
least — know  better;  and,  if  the  observation  had  been  as  true 
as  it  is  old,  would  not  have  failed  by  this  time  to  have  discov- 
ered it.  They  have  pretty  sharp  distinctions  of  the  fluctua- 
ting and  the  permanent.  "  Lightly  come,  lightly  go,"  is  a 
proverb  which  they  can  very  well  afford  to  leave,  when  they 
leave  little  else,  to  the  losers.  They  do  not  always  find 
manors,  got  by  rapine  or  chicanery,  insensibly  to  melt  away, 
as  the  poets  will  have  it ;  or  that  all  gold  glides,  like  thawing 
snow,  from  the  thief's  hand  that  grasps  it.  Church  land,  alien- 
ated to  lay  uses,  was  formerly  denounced  to  have  this  slippery 
quality.  But  some  portions  of  it  somehow  always  stuck  so 
fast,  that  the  denunciators  have  been  fain  to  postpone  the 
prophecy  of  refundment  to  a  late  posterity. 


III. 

THAT  A  MAN  MUST  NOT  LAUGH  AT  HIS  OWN  JEST. 

The  severest  exaction  surely  ever  invented  upon  the  self- 
denial  of  poor  human  nature  !  This  is  to  expect  a  gentleman 
to  give  a  treat  without  partaking  of  it ;  to  sit  esurient  at  his 
own  table,  and  commend  the  llavour  of  his  venison  upon  the 
absurd  strength  of  his  never  touching  it  himself.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  love  to  see  a  wag  taste  his  own  joke  to  his  party ; 
to  watch  a  quirk,  or  a  merry  conceit,  flickering  upon  the  lips 


280  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

some  seconds  before  the  tongue  is  delivered  of  it.  If  it  b( 
good,  fresh,  and  racy — begotten  of  the  occasion  ;  if  he  that 
utters  it  never  thought  it  before,  he  is  naturally  the  first  to  be 
tickled  with  it ;  and  any  suppression  of  such  complacence  we 
hold  to  be  churlish  and  insulting.  What  does  it  seem  to 
imply,  but  that  your  company  is  weak  or  foolish  enough  to  be 
moved  by  an  image  or  a  fancy  that  shall  stir  you  not  all,  or 
but  faintly  1  This  is  exactly  the  humour  of  the  tine  gentleman 
in  Mandeville,  who,  while  lie  dazzles  his  guests  with  the  dis- 
play of  some  costly  toy,  affects  himself  to  "  see  nothing  con- 
siderable in  it." 


IV. 

THAT  SUCH  A  ONE  SHOWS  HIS  BREEDING.— THAT  IT  IS 
EASY  TO  PERCEIVE  HE  IS  NO  GENTLEMAN. 

A  speech  from  the  poorest  sort  of  people,  which  always 
indicates  that  the  party  vituperated  is  a  gentleman.  The  very 
fact  which  they  deny,  is  that  which  galls  and  exasperates 
them  to  use  this  language.  The  forbearance  with  which  it  is 
usually  received,  is  a  proof  what  interpretation  the  bystander 
sets  upon  it.  Of  a  kin  to  this,  and  still  less  politic,  are  the 
phrases  with  which,  in  their  street  rhetoric,  they  ply  one 
another  more  grossly  ; — He  is  a  poor  creature. — He  has  not  a 

rag  to  cover ,  <yc. ;  though  this  last,  we  confess,  is  more 

frequently  applied  by  females  to  females.  They  do  not  perceive 
that  the  satire  glances  upon  themselves.  A  poor  man,  of  all 
things  in  the  world,  should  not  upbraid  an  antagonist  with 
poverty.     Are  there  no  other  topics — as,  to  tell  him  his  father 

was  hanged — his  sister,  &c. ,  without  exposing  a  secret 

which  should  be  kept  snug  between  them,  and  doing  an  af- 
front to  the  order  to  which  they  have  the  honour  equally  to 
belong?  All  this  while  they  do  not  see  how  the  wealthier 
man  stands  by  and  laughs  in  his  sleeve  at  both. 


ESSAYS     OF    ELIA.  2S 1 


V. 

THAT  THE  POOR  COPY  THE  VICES  OF  THE  RICH. 

A  smooth  text  to  the  letter  ;  and,  preached  from  the  pulpit, 
is  sure  of  a  docile  audience  from  the  pews  lined  with  satin. 
It  is  twice  sitting  upon  velvet  to  a  foolish  squire  to  be  told, 
that  he,  and  not  perverse  nature,  as  the  homilies  would  make 
us  imagine,  is  the  true  cause  of  all  the  irregularities  in  his 
parish.  This  is  striking  at  the  root  of  free-will  indeed,  and  de- 
nying the  originality  of  sin  in  any  sense.  But  men  are  not  quite 
such  implicit  sheep  as  this  comes  to.  If  the  abstinence  from 
evil  on  the  part  of  the  upper  classes  is  to  derive  itself  from  no 
higher  principle  than  the  apprehension  of  setting  ill  patterns 
to  the  lower,  we  beg  leave  to  discharge  them  from  all  squeam- 
ishness  on  that  score  ;  they  may  even  take  their  fill  of  pleas- 
ures, where  they  can  find  them.  The  genius  of  poverty, 
hampered  and  straitened  as  it  is,  is  not  so  barren  of  invention 
but  it  can  trade  upon  the  staple  of  its  own  vice,  without  draw- 
ing upon  their  capital.  The  poor  are  not  quite  such  servile 
imitators  as  they  take  them  for.  Some  of  them  are  very 
clever  artists  in  their  way.  Here  and  there  we  find  an 
original.  Who  taught  the  poor  to  steal,  to  pilfer  ?  They  did 
not  go  to  the  great  for  schoolmasters  in  these  faculties  surely. 
It  is  well  if  in  some  vices  they  allow  us  to  be — no  copyists. 
In  no  other  sense  is  it  true  that  the  poor  copy  them,  than  as 
servants  may  be  said  to  take  after  their  masters  and  mis- 
tresses, when  they  succeed  to  their  reversionary  cold  meats. 
If  the  master,  from  indisposition  or  some  other  cause,  neglect 
his  food,  the  servant  dines  notwithstanding. 

"  Oh,  but  (some  will  say)  the  force  of  example  is  great." 
We  knew  a  lady  who  was  so  scrupulous  on  this  head,  that  she 
would  put  up  with  the  calls  of  the  most  impertinent  visiter, 
rather  than  let  her  servant  say  she  was  not  at  home,  for  fear 
of  teaching  her  maid  to  tell  an  untruth;  and  this  in  the  very 
face  of  the  fact,  which  she  knew  well  enough,  that  the  wench 
was  one  of  the  greatest  liars  upon  the  earth  without  teaching; 
so  much  so,  that  her  mistress  possibly  never  heard  two  words 
of  consecutive  truth  from  her  in  her  life.  But  nature  must  go 
for  nothing  :  example  must  be  everything.  This  liar  in  grain, 
who  never  opened  her  mouth  without  a  lie,  must  be  guarded 
2  1* 


282  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

against  a  remote  inference,  which  she  (pretty  casnist !)  might 
possibly  draw  from  a  form  of  words — literally  false,  But  es- 
sentially deceiving  no  one — that  under  some  circumstances  a 
fib  might  not  be  so  exceedingly  sinful — a  fiction,  too,  not  at 
all  in  hei  own  way,  or  one  that  she  could  be  suspected  of 
adopting,  for  few  servant-wenches  care  to  be  denied  to 
visiters. 

This  word  example  reminds  us  of  another  fine  word  which 
is  in  use  upon  these  occasions — encouragement.  "  People  in 
our  sphere  must  not  be  thought  to  give  encouragement  to  such 
proceedings."  To  such  a  frantic  height  is  this  principle 
capable  of  being  carried,  that  we  have  known  individuals  who 
have  thought  it  within  the  scope  of  their  influence  to  sanction 
despair,  and  give  eclat  to — suicide.  A  domestic  in  the  family 
of  a  county  member  lately  deceased,  for  love,  or  some  un- 
known cause,  cut  his  throat,  but  not  successfully.  The  poor 
fellow  was  otherwise  much  loved  and  respected ;  and  great 
interest  was  used  in  his  behalf,  upon  his  recovery,  that  he 
might  be  permitted  to  retain  his  place  ;  his  word  being  first 
pledged,  not  without  some  substantial  sponsors  to  promise  for 
him,  that  the  like  should  never  happen  again.  His  master 
was  inclinable  to  keep  him,  but  his  mistress  thought  other- 
wise ;  and  John  in  the  end  was  dismissed,  her  ladyship  de- 
claring that  she  "  could  not  think  of  encouraging  any  such 
doings  in  the  county." 


VI. 

THAT  ENOUGH  IS  AS  GOOD  AS  A  FEAST. 

Not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  ten  miles  round  Guildhall, 
who  really  believes  this  saying.  The  inventor  of  it  did  not 
believe  it  himself.  It  was  made  in  revenge  by  somebody 
who  was  disappointed  of  a  regale.  It  is  a  vile  cold-scrag-of- 
mutton  sophism :  a  lie  palmed  upon  the  palate,  which  knows 
better  things.  If  nothing  else  could  be  said  for  a  feast,  this  is 
sufficient,  that  from  the  superflux  there  is  usually  something 
left  for  the  next  day.  Morally  interpreted,  it  belongs  to  a 
class  of  proverbs  which  have  a  tendency  to  make  us  under- 
value money.  Of  this  cast  are  those  notable  observations, 
that  money  is  not  health;  riches  cannot  purchase  everything; 
the  metaphor  which  makes  gold  to  be  mere  muck,  with  the 


LSSAVS    OP    KLIA.  2S3 

morality  which  traces  fine  clothing  to  the  sheep's  back,  and 
denounces  pearl  as  the  unhandsome  excretion  of  an  oyster. 
Hence,  too,  the  phrase  which  imputes  dirt  to  acres — a  sophis- 
try so  barefaced,  that  even  the  literal  sense  of  it  is  true  only 
in  a  wet  season.  This,  and  abundance  of  similar  sage  saws 
assuming  to  inculcate  content,  we  verily  believe  to  have  been 
the  invention  of  some  cunning  borrower,  who  had  designs 
upon  the  purse  of  his  wealthier  neighbour,  which  he  could 
only  hope  to  carry  by  force  of  these  verbal  jugglings.  Trans- 
late any  one  of  these  sayings  out  of  the  artful  metonyme 
which  envelops  it,  and  the  trick  is  apparent.  Goodly  legs 
and  shoulders  of  mutton,  exhilarating  cordials,  books,  pic- 
tures, the  opportunities  of  seeing  foreign  countries,  independ- 
ence, heart's  ease,  a  man's  own  time  to  himself,  are  not  muck 
— however  we  may  be  pleased  to  scandalize  with  that  appel- 
lation the  faithful  metal  that  provides  them  for  us. 


VII. 


OF  TWO  DISPUTANTS,  THE  WARMEST  IS  GENERALLY  IN' 
THE  WRONG. 

Our  experience  would  lead  us  td"  quite  an  opposite  conclu- 
sion. Temper,  indeed,  is  no  test  of  truth ;  but  warmth  and 
earnestness  are  a  proof  at  least  of  a  man's  own  conviction  of 
the  rectitude  of  that  which  he  maintains.  Coolness  is  as 
often  the  result  of  an  unprincipled  indifference  to  truth  or 
falsehood,  as  of  a  sober  confidence  in  a  man's  own  side  in  a 
dispute.  Nothing  is  more  insulting  sometimes  than  the  ap- 
pearance of  this  philosophic  temper.  There  is  little  Titubus, 
the  stammering  law-stationer  in  Lincoln's  Inn — we  have  sel- 
dom known  this  shrewd  little  fellow  engaged  in  an  argument 
where  we  were  not  convinced  he  had  the  best  of  it,  if  his 
tongue  would  but  fairly  have  seconded  him.  When  he  has 
been  spluttering  excellent  broken  sense  for  an  hour  together, 
writhing  and  labouring  to  be  delivered  of  the  point  of  dispute 
— the  very  gist  of  the  controversy  knocking  at  his  teeth, 
which,  like  some  obstinate  iron-grating,  still  obstructed  its  de- 
liverance— his  puny  frame  convulsed,  and  face  reddening  all 
over  at  an  unfairness  in  the  logic  which  he  wanted  articula- 
tion to  expose,  it  has  moved  our  gall  to  see  a  smooth,  portly 
fellow  of  an  adversary,  that  cared  not  a  button  for  the  merits 


284  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

of  the  question,  by  merely  laying  his  hand  upon  the  head  of 
the  stationer,  and  desiring  him  to  be  calm,  (your  tall  disputants 
have  always  the  advantage,)  with  a  provoking  sneer  carry  the 
argument  clean  from  him  in  the  opinion  of  all  the  by-standers, 
who  have  gone  away  clearly  convinced  that  Titubus  must 
have  been  in  the  wrong,  because  he  was  in  a  passion ;  and 

that  Mr. ,  meaning  his  opponent,  is  one  of  the  fairest, 

and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  dispassionate  arguers 
breathing. 


VIII. 


THAT  VERBAL  ALLUSIONS  ARE  NOT  WIT,  BECAUSE  THEY 
WILL  NOT  BEAR  A  TRANSLATION. 

The  same  might  be  said  of  the  wittiest  local  allusions.  A 
custom  is  sometimes  as  difficult  to  explain  to  a  foreigner  as 
a  pun.  What  would  become  of  a  great  part  of  the  wit  of 
the  last  age,  if  it  were  tried  by  this  test?  How  would  cer- 
tain topics,  as  aldermanity,  cuckoldry,  have  sounded  to  a 
Terentian  auditory,  though  Terence  himself  had  been  alive  to 
translate  them  1  Senator  urbanus,  with  Curruca  to  boot  for 
a  synonyme,  would  but  faintly  have  done  the  business.  Words, 
involving  notions,  are  hard  enough  to  render ;  it  is  too  much 
to  expect  us  to  translate  a  sound,  and  give  an  elegant  version 
to  a  jingle.  The  Virgilian  harmony  is  not  translatable,  but 
by  substituting  harmonious  sounds  in  another  language  for  it. 
To  Latinize  a  pun,  we  must  seek  a  pun  in  Latin  that  will  an- 
swer to  it ;  as,  to  give  an  idea  of  the  double  endings  in  Hu- 
dibras,  we  must  have  recourse  to  a  similar  practice  in  the  old 
monkish  doggerel.  Dennis,  the  fiercest  oppugner  of  puns  in 
ancient  or  modern  times,  professes  himself  highly  tickled 
with  the  "  a  stick"  chiming  to  "  ecclesiastic."  Yet  what  is 
this  but  a  species  of  pun,  a  verbal  consonance  ? 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  285 


IX. 

THAT  THE  WORST  PUNS  ARE  THE  BEST. 

If  by  worst  be  only  meant  the  most  far-fetched  and  .startling, 
we  agree  to  it.  A  pun  is  not  bound  by  the  laws  which  limit 
nicer  wit.  It  is  a  pistol  let  off  at  the  ear;  not  a  feather  to 
tickle  the  intellect.  It  is  an  antic  which  does  not  stand  upon 
manners,  but  comes  bounding  into  the  presence,  and  does  not 
show  the  less  comic  for  being  dragged  in  sometimes  by  the 
head  and  shoulders.  What  though  it  limp  a  little,  or  prove 
defective  in  one  leg — all  the  better.  A  pun  may  easily  be 
too  curious  and  artificial.  Who  has  not  at  one  time  or  other 
been  at  a  party  of  professors,  (himself  perhaps  an  old  offender 
in  that  line,)  where,  after  ringing  a  round  of  the  most  inge- 
nious conceits,  every  man  contributing  his  shot,  and  some  there 
the  most  expert  shooters  of  the  day  ;  after  making  a  poor 
word  run  the  gantlet  till  it  is  ready  to  drop;  after  hunting 
and  winding  it  through  all  the  possible  ambages  of  similar 
sounds ;  after  squeezing,  and  hauling,  and  tugging  at  it,  till 
the  very  milk  of  it  will  not  yield  a  drop  further — suddenly 
some  obscure,  unthought-of  fellow  in  a  corner,  who  was  never 
'prentice  to  the  trade,  whom  the  company  for  very  pity  passed 
over,  as  we  do  by  a  known  poor  man  when  a  money-subscrip- 
tion is  going  round,  no  one  calling  upon  him  for  his  quota — 
has  all  at  once  come  out  with  something  so  whimsical,  yet  so 
pertinent ;  so  brazen  in  its  pretensions,  yet  so  impossible  to 
be  denied ;  so  exquisitely  good  and  so  deplorably  bad  at  the 
same  time — that  it  has  proved  a  Robin  Hood's  shot ;  any- 
thing ulterior  to  that  is  despaired  of;  and  the  party  breaks  up, 
unanimously  voting  it  to  be  the  very  worst  (that  is,  best)  pun  of 
the  evening.  This  species  of  wit  is  the  better  for  not  being 
perfect  in  all  its  parts.  What  it  gains  in  completeness,  it  loses 
in  naturalness.  The  more  exactly  it  satisfies  the  critical,  the 
less  hold  it  has  upon  some  other  faculties.  The  puns  which 
are  most  entertaining  are  those  which  will  least  bear  an  anal- 
ysis. Of  this  kind  is  the  following,  recorded,  with  a  sort  of 
stigma,  in  one  of  Swift's  miscellanies. 

An  Oxford  scholar,  meeting  a  porter  who  was  carrying  a 
hare  through  the  streets,  accosts  htm  with  this  extraordinary 
question :   "  Prithee,  friend,  is  that  thy  own  hare,  or  a  wig  ?" 

There  is  no  excusing  this,  and  no  resisting  it.      A  man 


286  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

might  blur  ten  sides  of  paper  in  attempting  a  defence  of  it 
against  a  critic  who  should  be  laughter-proof.  The  quibble 
in  itself  is  not  considerable.  It  is  only  a  new  turn  given,  by 
a  little  false  pronunciation,  to  a  very  common,  though  not 
very  courteous  inquiry.  Put  by  one  gentleman  to  another  at 
a  dinner-party,  it  would  have  been  vapid  ;  to  the  mistress  of 
the  house,  it  would  have  shown  much  less  wit  than  rudeness. 
We  must  take  in  the  totality  of  time,  place,  and  person  ;  the 
pert  look  of  the  inquiring  scholar,  the  desponding  looks  of  the 
puzzled  porter ;  the  one  stopping  at  leisure,  the  other  hurry- 
ing on  with  his  burden ;  the  innocent  though  rather  abrupt 
tendency  of  the  first  member  of  the  question,  with  the  utter 
and  inextricable  irrelevancy  of  the  second ;  the  place — a 
public  street,  not  favourable  to  frivolous  investigations ;  the 
affrontive  quality  of  the  primitive  inquiry  (the  common  ques- 
tion) invidiously  transferred  to  the  derivative  (the  new  turn 
given  to  it)  in  the  implied  satire ;  namely,  that  few  of  that 
tribe  are  expected  to  eat  of  the  good  things  which  they  carry, 
they  being  in  most  countries  considered  rather  as  the  temporary 
trustees  than  owners  of  such  dainties — which  the  fellow  was 
beginning  to  understand ;  but  then  the  wig  again  comes  in, 
and  he  can  make  nothing  of  it :  all  put  together  constitute  a 
picture :  Hogarth  could  have  made  it  intelligible  on  canvass. 
Yet  nine  out  of  ten  critics  will  pronounce  this  a  very  bad 
pun,  because  of  the  defectiveness  in  the  concluding  member, 
which  is  its  very  beauty,  and  constitutes  the  surprise.  The 
same  persons  shall  cry  up  for  admirable  the  cold  quibble  from 
Virgil  about  the  broken  Cremona  ;*  because  it  is  made  out  in 
all  its  parts,  and  leaves  nothing  to  the  imagination.  We  ven- 
ture to  call  it  cold  ;  because,  of  thousands  who  have  admired 
it,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  one  who  has  heartily  chuckled 
at  it.  As  appealing  to  the  judgment  merely,  (setting  the  ris- 
ible faculty  aside,)  we  must  pronounce  it  a  monument  of  cu- 
rious felicity.  But  as  some  stories  are  said  to  be  too  good  to 
be  true,  it  may  with  equal  truth  be  asserted  of  this  bi-verbal 
allusion,  that  it  is  too  good  to  be  natural.  One  cannot  help 
suspecting  that  the  incident  was  invented  to  fit  the  line.  It 
would  have  been  better  had  it  been  less  perfect.  Like  some 
Virgilian  hemistichs,  it  has  suffered  by  filling  up.  The  nimi- 
um  Vicina  was  enough  in  conscience ;  the  Cremona  afterward 
loads  it.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  double  pun  ;  and  we  have  always 
observed  that  a  superfetation  in  this  sort  of  wit  is  dangerous. 
When  a  man  has  said  a  good  thing,  it  is  seldom  politic  to  fol- 
low it  up.      We  do  not  care  to  be  cheated  a  second  time ;  or, 

*  Swift. 


LSSSAYS    OF    ELIA.  287 

perhaps,  the  mind  of  man  (with  reverence  be  it  spoken) 
is  not  capacious  enough  to  lodge  two  puns  at  a  time.  The 
impression,  to  be  forcible,  must  be  simultaneous  and  undivided. 


THAT  HANDSOME  IS  THAT  HANDSOME  DOES. 

Those  who  use  this  proverb  can  never  have  seen  Mrs. 
Conrady. 

The  soul,  if  we  may  believe  Plotinus,  is  a  ray  from  the  ce- 
lestial beauty.  As  she  partakes  more  or  less  of  this  heavenly 
light,  she  informs,  with  corresponding  characters,  the  fleshy 
tenement  which  she  chooses,  and  frames  to  herself  a  suitable 
mansion. 

All  which  only  proves  that  the  soul  of  Mrs.  Conrady,  in 
her  pre-existent  state,  was  no  great  judge  of  architecture. 

To  the  same  effect,  in  a  hymn  in  honour  of  beauty,  divine 
Spenser,  platonizing,  sings  : — 

"  Every  spirit  as  it  is  more  pure, 
And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light, 
So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight 
With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight. 
For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take  : 
For  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  make." 

But  Spenser,  it  is  clear,  never  saw  Mrs.  Conrady. 

These  poets,  we  find,  are  no  safe  guides  in  philosophy  ;  for 
here,  in  his  very  next  stanza  but  one,  is  a  saving  clause,  which 
throws  us  all  out  again,  and  leaves  us  as  much  to  seek  as 
ever : — 

"  Yet  oft  it  falls,  that  many  a  gentle  mind 
Dwells  in  deformed  tabernacle  drovvn'd, 
Father  by  chance,  against  the  course  of  kind, 
Or  through  unaptness  in  the  substance  found, 
Which  it  assumed  of  some  stubborn  ground, 
That  will  not  yield  unto  her  form's  direction, 
But  is  perfoim'd  with  some  foul  imperfection." 

From  which  it  would  follow,  that  Spenser  had  seen  somebody 
like  Mrs.  Conrady. 

The  spirit  of  this  good  lady — her  previous  anima — must  have 
stumbled  upon  one  of  these  untoward  tabernacles  which  he 
speaks  of.     A  more  rebellious  commodity  of  clay  for  a  ground. 


288  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

as  the  poet  calls  it,  no  gentle  mind — and  sure  hers  is  one  of 
the  gentlest — ever  had  to  deal  with. 

Pondering  upon  her  inexplicable  visage — inexplicable,  we 
mean,  but  by  this  modification  of  the  theory — we  have  come 
to  a  conclusion  that,  if  one  must  be  plain,  it  is  better  to  be 
plain  all  over,  than,  amid  a  tolerable  residue  of  features,  to 
hang  out  one  that  shall  be  exceptionable.  No  one  can  say  of 
Mrs.  Conrady's  countenance,  that  it  would  be  better  if  she 
had  but  a  nose.  It  is  impossible  to  pull  her  to  pieces  in  this 
manner.  We  have  seen  the  most  malicious  beauties  of  her  own 
sex  baffled  in  the  attempt  at  a  selection.  The  tout  ensemble 
defies  particularizing.  It  is  too  complete — too  consistent,  as 
we  may  say — to  admit  of  these  invidious  reservations.  It  is 
not  as  if  some  Apelles  had  picked  out  here  a  lip — and  there  a 
chin — out  of  the  collected  ugliness  of  Greece,  to  frame  a  model 
by.  It  is  a  symmetrical  whole.  We  challenge  the  minutest 
connoisseur  to  cavil  at  any  part  or  parcel  of  the  countenance  in 
question  ;  to  say  that  this  or  that  is  improperly  placed.  We 
are  convinced  that  true  ugliness,  no  less  than  is  affirmed  of 
true  beauty,  is  the  result  of  harmony.  Like  that,  too,  it  reigns 
without  a  competitor.  No  one  ever  saw  Mrs.  Conrady,  with- 
out pronouncing  her  to  be  the  plainest  woman  he  ever  met 
with  in  the  course  of  his  life.  The  first  time  that  you  are  in- 
dulged with  a  sight  of  her  face  is  an  era  in  your  existence 
ever  after.  You  are  glad  to  have  seen  it — ldie  Stonehenge. 
No  one  can  pretend  to  forget  it.  No  one  ever  apologized  to 
her  for  meeting  her  in  the  street,  on  such  a  day  and  not  know- 
ing her :  the  pretext  would  be  too  bare.  Nobody  can  mistake 
her  for  another.  Nobody  can  say  of  her,  "  I  think  I  have  seen 
that  face  somewhere,  but  I  cannot  call  to  mind  where."  You 
must  remember  that  in  such  a  parlour  it  first  struck  you — like 
a  bust.  You  wondered  where  the  owner  of  the  house  had 
picked  it  up.  You  wondered  more  when  it  began  to  move  its 
lips — so  mildly  too  !  No  one  ever  thought  of  asking  her  to  sit 
for  her  picture.  Lockets  are  for  remembrance  ;  and  it  would 
be  clearly  superfluous  to  hang  an  image  at  your  heart,  which, 
once  seen,  can  never  be  out  of  it.  It  is  not  a  mean  face  either; 
its  entire  originality  precludes  that.  Neither  is  it  of  that  or- 
der of  plain  faces  which  improve  upon  acquaintance.  Some 
very  good  but  ordinary  people,  by  an  unwearied  perseverance 
in  good  offices,  put  a  cheat  upon  our  eyes  ;  juggle  our  senses 
out  of  their  natural  impressions ;  and  set  us  upon  discovering 
good  indications  in  a  countenance,  which  at  first  sight  prom- 
ised nothing  less.  We  detect  gentleness,  which  had  escaped 
us,  lurking  about  an  under  lip.  But  when  Mrs.  Conrady  has 
done  you  a  service,  her  face  remains  the  same  ;  when  she 


ESSAYS  OF   ELIA. 

has  done  you  a  thousand,  and  you  know  that  she  is  ready  to 
double  the  number,  still  it  is  that  individual  face.  Neither 
can  you  say  of  it,  that  it  would  be  a  good  face  if  it  were  not 
marked  by  the  smallpox — a  compliment  which  is  always  more 
admissive  than  excusatory — for  either  Mrs.  Conrady  never 
had  the  smallpox,  or,  as  we  say,  took  it  kindly.  No,  it  stands 
upon  its  own  merits  fairly.  There  it  is.  It  is  her  mark,  her 
token ;  that  which  she  is  known  by. 


XL 

THAT  WE  MUST  NOT  LOOK  A  GIFT-HORSE  IN  THE 
MOUTH. 

Nor  a  lady's  age  in  the  parish  register.  We  hope  we  have 
more  delicacy  than  to  do  either ;  but  some  faces  spare  us  the 
trouble  of  these  dental  inquiries.  And  what  if  the  beast, 
which  my  friend  would  force  upon  my  acceptance,  prove,  upon 
the  face  of  it,  a  sorry  Kosinante,  a  lean,  ill-favoured  jade,  whom 
no  gentleman  couhl  think  of  setting  up  in  his  stables?  Must  I, 
rather  than  not  be  obliged  to  my  friend,  make  her  a  companion 
to  Eclipse  or  Lightfoot  ?  A  horse-giver,  no  more  than  a  horse- 
seller,  has  a  right  to  palm  his  spavined  article  upon  us  for  good 
ware.  An  equivalent  is  expected  in  either  case;  and,  with 
my  own  good-will,  I  would  no  more  be  cheated  out  of  my 
thanks  than  out  of  my  money.  Some  people  have  a  knack 
of  putting  upon  you  gifts  of  no  real  value,  to  engage  you  to 
substantial  gratitude.  We  thank  them  for  nothing.  Our 
friend  Mitis  carries  this  humour  of  never  refusing  a  present 
to  the  very  point  of  absurdity — if  it  were  possible  to  couple 
the  ridiculous  with  so  much  mistaken  delicacy  and  real  good- 
nature. Not  an  apartment  in  his  fine  house  (and  he  has  a 
true  taste  in  household  decorations)  but  is  stuffed  up  with 
some  preposterous  print  or  mirror — the  worst  adapted  to  his 
panels  that  may  be — the  presents  of  his  friends  that  know 
his  weakness  ;  while  his  noble  Vandykes  are  displaced,  to" 
make  room  for  a  set  of  daubs,  the  works  of  some  wretched 
artist  of  his  acquaintance,  who,  having  had  them  returned 
upon  his  hands  for  bad  likenesses,  finds 'his  account  in  be- 
stowing them  here  gratis.  The  good  creature  has  not  tin: 
heart  to  mortify  the  painter  at  the  expense  of  an  honest  re- 
fusal. It  is  pleasant  (if  it  did  not  vex  one  at  the  same  time) 
25  N 


290  ESSAYS    OF  ELIA. 

to  see  him  sitting  in  his  dining-parlour,  surrounded  with  ob- 
scure aunts  and  cousins,  to  God  knows  whom,  while  the  true 
Lady  Marys  and  Lady  Bettys  of  his  own  honourable  family, 
in  favour  to  these  adopted  frights,  are  consigned  to  the  stair- 
case and  the  lumber-room.  In  like  manner  his  goodly  shelves 
are  one  by  one  stripped  of  his  favourite  old  authors,  to  give  place 
to  a  collection  of  presentation  copies — the  flour  and  bran  of 
modern  poetry.  A  presentation  copy,  reader — if  haply  you 
are  yet  innocent  of  such  favours — is  a  copy  of  a  book  which 
does  not  sell,  sent  you  by  the  author,  with  his  foolish  auto- 
graph at  the  beginning  of  it ;  for  which,  if  a  stranger,  he 
only  demands  your  friendship  ;  if  a  brother  author,  he  expects 
from  you  a  book  of  yours,  which  does  sell,  in  return.  We  can 
speak  to  experience,  having  by  us  a  tolerable  assortment  of 
these  gift-horses.  Not  to  ride  a  metaphor  to  death  —  we  are 
Milling  to  acknowledge  that  in  some  gifts  there  is  sense.  A 
duplicate  out  of  a  friend's  library  (where  he  has  more  than 
one  copy  of  a  rare  author)  is  intelligible.  There  are  favours, 
short  of  the  pecuniary — a  thing  not  fit  to  be  hinted  at  among 
gentlemen — which  confer  as  much  grace  upon  the  accepter  as 
the  offerer;  the  kind,  we  confess,  which  is  most  to  our  palate, 
is  of  those  little  conciliatory  missives,  which  for  their  vehicle 
generally  choose  a  hamper — little  odd  presents  of  game,  fruit, 
perhaps  wine — though  it  is  essential  to  the  delicacy  of  the  latter 
that  it  be  home-made.  We  love  to  have  our  friund  in  the  country 
sitting  thus  at  our  table  by  proxy  ;  to  apprehend  his  presence 
(though  a  hundred  miles  may  be  between  us)  by  a  turkey, 
whose  goodly  aspect  reflects  to  us  his  "plump  corpusculum  ;" 
to  taste  him  in  grouse  or  woodcock  ;  to  feel  him  gliding  down 
in  the  toast  peculiar  to  the  latter;  to  concorporate  him  in  a 
slice  of  Canterbury  brawn.  This  is  indeed  to  have  him 
within  ourselves  ;  to  know  him  intimately:  such  participation 
is,  methinks,  unitive,  as  the  old  theologians  phrase  it.  For 
these  considerations  we  should  be  sorry  if  certain  restrictive 
regulations,  winch  are  thought  to  bear  hard  upon  the  peasantry 
of  this  country,  were  entirely  done  away  with.  A  hare,  as 
the  law  now  stands,  makes  many  friends.  Cains  concil- 
iates Titius  (knowing  his  gout)  with  a  leash  of  partridges. 
Titius  (suspecting  his  partiality  for  them)  passes  them  to 
Lucius  ;  who  in  his  turn,  preferring  his  friend's  relish  to  his 
own,  makes  him  over  to  Marcius  ;  till,  in  their  ever-widening 
progress  and  round  of  unconscious  circum-migration,  they 
distribute  the  seeds  of  harmony  over  half  a  parish.  We  are 
well  disposed  to  this  kind  of  sensible  remembrances  ;  and  are 
the  less  apt  to  be  taken  by  those  little  airy  tokens — impalpable 
to  the  palate — which,  under  the  names  of  rings,  lockets,  keep- 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  291 

sakes,  amuse  some  people's  fancy  mightily.  We  could  never 
away  with  these  indigestible  miles.  They  are  the  very  kick- 
shaws and  foppery  of  friendship. 


XII. 

THAT  HOME  IS  HOME,  THOUGH  IT  IS  NEVER  SO 
HOMELY. 

Homks  there  are,  we  are  sure,  that  are  nit  homes  ;  the  home 
of  the  v»  iv  pdor  man.  and  another  which  we  shall  -speak  to 
presently.  Crowded  places  of  cheap  entertainment,  and  the 
benches  of  alehouses,  if  they  could  speak,  might  bear  mourn- 
ful testimony  to  the  first.  To  them  the  very  poor  man  resorts 
for  an  image  of  the  home  which  he  cannot  iind  at  home.  For 
a  starved  grate,  and  a  scanty  firing,  that  is  not  enough  to  keep 
alive  the  natural  heat  in  the  lingers  of  so  many  shivering 
children  with  their  mother,  he  finds  in  the  depths  of  winter 
always  a  biasing  hearth,  and  a  hob  to  warm  his  pittance  of 
beer  by.  Instead  of  the  clamours  of  a  wife,  made  gaunt  by 
famishing,  he  meets  with  a  cheerful  attendance  beyond  the 
merits  of  the  trifle  which  he  can  afford  to  spend.  He  has 
companions  which  his  home  denies  him,  for  the  very  poor 
man  has  no  visiters.  He  can  look  into  the  goings  on  of  the 
world,  and  speak  a  little  to  politics.  At  home  there  are  no  poli- 
tics stirring  but  the  domestic.  All  interests,  real  or  imaginary, 
all  topics  that  should  expand  the  mind  of  man,  and  connect 
him  to  a  sympathy  with  general  existence,  are  crushed  in  the 
absorbing  consideration  of  food  to  be  obtained  for  the  family. 
Beyond  the  price  of  bread,  news  is  senseless  and  impertinent. 
At  home  there  is  no  larder.  Here  there  is  at  least  a  show 
of  plenty  ;  and  while  he  cooks  his  lean  scrap  of  butcher's  meat 
before  the  common  bars,  or  munches  his  humbler  cold  viands, 
his  relishing  bread  and  cheese  with  an  onion,  in  a  corner, 
where  no  one  reflects  upon  his  poverty,  he  has  a  sight  of  the 
substantial  joint  providing  for  the  landlord  and  his  family. 
He  takes  an  interest  in  the  dressing  of  it  ;  and  while  he  assists 
in  removing  the  trivet  from  the  lire,  he  feels  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  beef  and  cabbage,  winch  he  was  beginning  to  for- 
get at  home.  All  this  while  lie  deserts  his  wife  and  children. 
But  what  wife,  and  what  children  !  Prosperous  men,  who 
object  to  this  desertion,  image  to  themselves  some  clean,  con- 

N  -z 


292  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

tented  family  like  that  which  they  go  home  to.  But  look  at 
the  countenance  of  the  poor  wives  who  follow  and  persecute 
their  good  man  to  the  door  of  the  public  house,  which  he  is 
about  to  enter,  when  something  like  shame  would  restrain 
him,  if  stronger  misery  did  not  induce  him  to  pass  the  thresh- 
old. That  face,  ground  by  want,  in  which  every  cheerful, 
every  conversable  lineament  has  been  long  effaced  by  misery 
— is  that  a  face  to  stay  at  home  with ?  is  it  more  a  woman, 
or  a  wild  cat?  alas !  it  is  the  face  of  the  wife  of  his  youth, 
that  once  smiled  upon  him.  It  can  smile  no  longer.  What 
comforts  can  it  share  ?  what  burdens  can  it  lighten  ?  Oh, 
'tis  a  fine  thing  to  talk  of  the  humble  meal  shared  together ! 
But  what  if  there  be  no  bread  in  the  cupboard  1  The  inno- 
cent prattle  of  his  children  takes  out  the  sting  of  a  man's  pov- 
erty. But  the  children  of  the  very  poor  do  not  prattle.  It  is 
none  of  the  least  frightful  features  in  that  condition,  that  there 
is  no  childishness  in  its  dwellings.  Poor  people,  said  a  sen- 
sible old  nurse  to  ns  once,  do  not  bring  up  their  children  ; 
they  drag  them  up.  The  little  careless  darling  of  the  wealth- 
ier nursery,  in  their  hovel  is  transformed  betimes  into  a  pre- 
mature reflecting  person.  No  one  has  time  to  dandle  it,  no 
one  thinks  it  worth  while  to  coax  it,  to  sooth  it,  to  toss  it  up 
and  down,  to  humour  it.  There  is  none  to  kiss  away  its  tears. 
If  it  cries,  it  can  only  be  beaten.  It  has  been  prettily  said 
that  "  a  babe  is  fed  with  milk  and  praise."  But  the  aliment 
of  this  poor  babe  was  thin,  unnourishing  ;  the  return  to  its  lit- 
tle baby-tricks,  and  efforts  to  engage  attention,  bitter  cease- 
less objurgation.  It  never  had  a  toy,  or  knew  what  a  coral 
meant.  It  grew  up  without  the  lullaby  of  nurses,  it  was  a 
stranger  to  the  patient  fondle,  the  hushing  caress,  the  attract- 
ing novelty,  the  costlier  plaything,  or  the  cheaper  off-hand 
contrivance  to  divert  the  child ;  the  prattled  nonsense,  (best 
sense  to  it,)  the  wise  impertinences,  the  wholesome  lies,  the 
apt  story  interposed,  that  puts  a  stop  to  present  sufferings,  and 
awakens  the  passions  of  young  wonder.  It  was  never  sung 
to — no  one  ever  told  to  it  a  tale  of  the  nursery.  It  was 
dragged  up,  to  live  or  to  die  as  it  happened.  It  had  no  young 
dreams.  It  broke  at  once  into  the  iron  realities  of  life.  A 
child  exists  not  for  the  very  poor  as  any  object  of  dalliance ; 
it  is  only  another  mouth  to  be  fed,  a  pair  of  little  hands  to  be 
betimes  inured  to  labour.  It  is  the  rival,  till  it  can  be  the  co- 
operator,  for  food  with  the  parent.  It  is  never  his  mirth,  his 
diversion,  his  solace  ;  it  never  makes  him  young  again,  with 
recalling  his  young  times.  The  children  of  the  very  poor 
have  no  young  times.  It  makes  the  very  heart  to  bleed  to 
overhear  the  casual  street-talk  bet-ween  a  poor  woman  and  her 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  203 

little  girl,  a  woman  of  the  better  sort  of  poor,  in  a  condition 
rather  above  the  squalid  beings  which  we  have  been  contem- 
plating. It  is  not  of  toys,  of  nursery-books,  of  summer  holv- 
days  ;  (fitting  that  age  ;)  of  the  promised  sight,  or  play  ;  of 
praised  sufficiency  at  school.  It  is  of  mangling  and  clear- 
starching, of  the  price  of  coals,  or  of  potatoes.  The  questions 
of  the  child,  that  should  be  the  very  outpourings  of  curiosity 
in  idleness,  are  marked  with  forecast  and  melancholy  provi- 
dence. It  has  tome  to  be  a  woman — before  it  was  a  child. 
It  has  learned  to  go  to  market;  it  chaffers,  it  haggles,  it  en- 
vies, it  murmurs  :  it  is  knowing,  acute,  sharpened  ;-  it  never 
prattles.  Had  we  not  reason  to  say,  that  the  home  of  the 
very  poor  is  no  home  ? 

There  is  yet  another  home,  which  we  are  constrained  to 
deny  to  be  one.  It  lias  a  larder,  which  the  home  of  the  poor 
man  wants  ;  its  fireside  conveniences,  of  which  the  poor 
dream  not.  But  with  all  this,  it  is  no  home.  It  is — the 
house  of  the  man  that  is  infested  with  many  visiters.  May 
we  be  branded  for  the  veriest  churl,  if  we  deny  our  heart  to 
the  many  noble-hearted  friends  that  at  times  exchange  their 
dwelling  for  our  poor  roof!  It  is  not  of  guests  that  we  com- 
plain, but  of  endless,  purposeless  visitants  ;  droppers  in,  as 
they  are  called.  We  sometinTes  wonder  from  what  sky  they 
fall.  It  is  the  very  error  of  the  position  of  our  lodging;  its 
horoscopy  was  ill  calculated,  being  just  situate  in  a  medium 
— a  plaguy  suburban  mid-space — fitted  to  catch  idlers  from 
town  or  country.  We  are  older  than  we  were,  and  age  is 
easily  put  out  of  its  way.  We  have  fewer  sands  in  our  glass 
to  reckon  upon,  and  we  cannot  brook  to  see  them  drop  in  end- 
lessly succeeding  impertinences.  At  our  time  of  life,  to  be 
alone  sometimes  is  as  needful  as  sleep.  It  is  the  refreshing- 
sleep  of  the  day.  The  growing  infirmities  of  age  manifest 
themselves  in  nothing  more  strongly,  than  in  an  inveterate 
dislike  of  interruption.  The  thing  which  we  are  doing,  we 
wish  to  be  permitted  to  do.  We  have  neither  much  knowl- 
edge nor  devices  ;  but  there  are  fewer  in  the  place  to  which 
we  hasten.  We  are  not  willingly  put  out  of  our  way,  even  at 
a  game  of  nine-pins.  While  youth  was,  we  had  vast  rever- 
sions in  time  future  ;  we  are  reduced  to  a  present  pittance, 
and  obliged  to  economize  in  that  article.  Wre  bleed  away  our 
moments  now  as  hardly  as  our  ducats.  We  cannot  bear  to 
have  our  thin  wardrobe  eaten  and  fretted  into  by  moths.  We 
are  willing  to  barter  our  good  time  with  a  friend,  who  gives 
us  in  exchange  his  own.  Herein  is  the  distinction  between 
the  genuine  guest  and  the  visitant.  This  latter  takes  your 
good  time,  and  gives  you  his  bad  in  exchange.  The  guest  is 
25* 


294  ESSAYS    OJF    EL1A 

domestic  to  you  as  your  good  cat  or  household  bird ;  the 
visitant  is  your  fly,  that  flaps  in  at  your  window,  and  out  again, 
leaving  nothing  but.  a  sense  of  disturbance,  and  victuals  spoiled. 
The  inferior  functions  of  life  begin  to  move  heavily.  We 
cannot  concoct  our  food  with  interruptions.  Our  chief  meal, 
to  be  nutritive,  must  be  solitary.  With  difficulty  we  can  eat 
before  a  guest ;  and  never  understood  what  the  relish  of  pub- 
lic feasting  meant.  Meats  have  no  sapor,  nor  digestion  fair 
play,  in  a  crowd.  The  unexpected  coming  in  of  a  visitant 
stops  the  machine.  There  is  a  punctual  generation  who  time 
their  calls  to  the  precise  commencement  of  your  dining-hour 
— not  to  eat — but  to  see  you  eat.  Our  knife  and  fork  drop 
instinctively,  and  we  feel  that  we  have  swallowed  our  latest 
morsel.  Others  again  show  their  genius,  as  we  have  said,  in 
knocking  the  moment  you  have  just  sat  down  to  a  book. 
They  have  a  peculiar  compassionate  sneer,  with  which  they 
"hope  that  they  do  not  interrupt  your  studies."  Though 
they  flutter  off  the  next  moment,  to  carry  their  impertinences 
to  the  nearest  student  that  they  can  call  their  friend,  the  tone 
of  the  book  is  spoiled ;  we  shut  the  leaves,  and,  with  Dante's 
lovers,  read  no  more  that  day.  It  were  well  if  the  effect  of 
intrusion  were  simply  coextensive  with  its  presence ;  but  it 
mars  all  the  good  hours  afterward.  These  scratches  in  ap- 
pearance leave  an  orifice  that  closes  not  hastily.  "  It  is  a 
prostitution  of  the  bravery  of  friendship,"  says  worthy  Bishop 
Taylor,  "  to  spend  it  upon  impertinent  people,  who  are,  it 
may  be,  loads  to  their  families,  but  can  never  ease  my  loads." 
This  is  the  secret  of  their  gaddings,  their  visits,  and  morning 
calls.     They  too  have  homes,  which  are — no  homes. 


XIII. 
THAT  YOU  MUST  LOVE  ME,  AND  LOVE  MY  DOG. 

"  Good  sir,  or  madam,  as  ii  may  be  —  we  most  willingly 
embrace  the  oiler  of  your  friendship.  We  long  have  known 
your  excellent  qualities.  We  have  wished  to  have  vou  nearer 
to  us  ;  tn  hold  you  within  the  very  innermost  fold  of  our  heart. 
We  can  have  no  reserve  towards  a  person  of  your  open  anil 
noble  nature.  The  frankness  of  your  humour  suits  us  ex- 
actly. We  have  been  long  looking  for  such  a  friend.  Quick — 
let  us  disburden  our  troubles  into  eacl   other's  bosom — let  us 


ESSAYS    OF    KL1A.  295 

make  our  single  joys  shine  by  reduplication — But  yap,  yap, 
yap! — what  is  tins  confounded  cur.'  he  has  fastened  his 
tooth,  which  is  none  of  the  bluntest,  just  in  the  fleshy  partof 
my  leg." 

"It  is  niv  dug,  sir.  You  must  love  him  for  my  sake. 
Here,  Test— Test— Test!" 

"  But  he  has  bitten  inc." 

"Ay,  that  he  is  apt  to  do,  till  you  are  better  acquainted  with 
him.     I  have  had  hun  three  years.     He  never  bites  me." 

\  'a/>,  yap,  yap  ! — "  He  is  at  it  again." 

''  Oh,  sir,  you  must  not  kick  him.  He  does  not  like  to  be 
kicked.  I  expect  my  dog  to  be  treated  with  all  the  respect 
due  to  myself." 

"  But  do  you  always  take  him  out  with  you  when  you  go  a 

friendship-hunting  ■ 

"  Invariably,  "fis  the  sweetest,  prettiest,  best-conditioned 
animal.  I  call  him  my  test — the  touchstone  by  which  I  try 
a  friend.  No  one  can  properly  be  said  to  love  me  who  does 
not  love  him." 

"  Excuse  us,  dear  sir — or  madam  aforesaid — if  upon  further 
consideration  we  are  obliged  to  decline  the  otherwise  invaluable 
offer  of  your  friendship.      We  do  not  like  dogs." 

"  Mighty  well,  sir — you  know  the  conditions — you  may 
have  worse  oilers.     Come  along,  Test." 

The  above  dialogue  is  not  so  imaginary,  but  that,  in  the  in- 
tercourse of  life,  we  have  had  frequent  occasions  of  breaking 
oil'  an  agreeable  intimacy  by  reason  of  these  canine  appen- 
dages. They  do  not  always  come  in  the  shape  of  dogs;  they 
sometimes  wear  the  more  plausible  and  human  character  of 
kinsfolk,  near  acquaintances,  my  friend's  friend,  his  partner, 
his  wife,  or  his  children.  We  could  never  yet  form  a  friend- 
ship— not  to  speak  of  more  delicate  correspondence — however 
much  to  our  taste,  without  the  intervention  of  some  third 
anomaly,  some  impertinent  clog  affixed  to  the  relation — the 
understood  </()«•  in  the  proverb.  The  good  things  of  life  are 
not  to  be  had  singly,  but  come  to  us  with  a  mixture  ;  like  a 
schoolboy's  holyday,  with  a  task  affixed  to  the  tail  of  it. 
What  a  delightful  companion  is  *  *  *  *,  if  he  did  not  always 
bring  his  tall  cousin  with  him  !  He  seems  to  grow  with  him  ; 
like  some  of  those  double  births,  which  we  remember  to  have 
read  of  with  such  wonder  and  delight  in  the  old  "  Athenian 
Oracle,"  where  Swift  commenced  author  by  writing  Pin- 
daric Odes  (what  a  beginning  for  him!)  upon  Sir  William 
Temple.  There  is  the  picture  of  the  brother,  with  the 
little  brother  peeping  out  at  his  shoulder;  a  species  of 
fraternity  which  we  have  no  name  of  kin  close  enough  to 


296  ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A. 

comprehend.  When  *  *  *  *  comes,  poking  in  his  head  and 
shoulder  into  your  room,  as  if  to  feel  his  entry,  you  think, 
surely  you  have  now  got  him  to  yourself — what  a  three-hours' 
chat  we  shall  have  ! — but,  ever  in  the  haunch  of  him,  and  be- 
fore his  diffident  body  is  well  disclosed  in  your  apartment,  ap- 
pears the  haunting  shadow  of  the  cousin, over-peering  his  modest 
kinsman,  and  sure  to  overlay  the  expected  good  talk  with  his 
insufferable  procerity  of  stature,  and  uncorresponding  dwarf- 
ishness  of  observation.  Misfortunes  seldom  come  alone. 
'Tis  hard  when  a  blessing  comes  accompanied.  Cannot  we 
like  Sempronia,  without  sitting  down  to  chess  with  her  eternal 
brother  1  or  know  Sulpicia,  without  knowing  all  the  round  of 
her  card-playing  relations  ?  must  my  friend's  brethren  of  ne- 
cessity be  mine  also  ?  must  we  be  hand  and  glove  with  Dick 
Selby  the  parson,  or  Jack  Selby  the  calico-printer,  because 
W.  S.,  who  is  neither,  but  a  ripe  wit  and  a  critic,  has  the  mis- 
fortune to  claim  a  common  parentage  with  them  1  Let  him  lay 
down  his  brothers  ;  and  'tis  odds  but  we  will  cast  him  in  a  pair 
of  ours  (we  have  a  superflux)  to  balance  the  concession.  Let 
F.  H.  lay  down  his  garrulous  uncle  ;  and  Honorius  dismiss  his 
vapid  wife,  and  superfluous  establishment  of  six  boys:  things 
between  boy  and  manhood — too  ripe  for  play,  too  raw  for  con- 
versation— that  come  in,  impudently  staring  their  father's  old 
friend  out  of  countenance ;  and  will  neither  aid  nor  let  alone 
the  conference  :  that  we  may  once  more  meet  upon  equal 
terms,  as  we  were  wont  to  do  in  the  disengaged  state  of  bach- 
elorhood. 

It  is  well  if  your  friend  or  mistress  be  content  with  these 
canicular  probations.  Few  young  ladies  but  in  this  sense 
keep  a  dog.  But  when  Rutilia  hounds  at  you  her  tiger  aunt ; 
or  Ruspina  expects  you  to  cherish  and  fondle  her  viper  sister, 
whom  she  has  preposterously  taken  into  her  bosom,  to  try 
stinging  conclusions  upon  your  constancy ;  they  must  not 
complain  if  the  house  be  rather  thin  of  suiters.  Scylla  must 
have  broken  off  many  excellent  matches  in  her  time,  if  she 
insisted  upon  all  that  loved  her  loving  her  dogs  also. 

An  excellent  story  to  this  moral  is  told  of  Merry,  of  Delia 
Cruscan  memory.  In  tender  youth,  he  loved  and  courted  a 
modest  appanage  to  the  opera,  in  truth  a  dancer,  who  had 
won  him  by  the  artless  contrast  between  her  manners  and 
situation.  She  seemed  to  him  a  native  violet,  that  had  been 
transplanted  by  some  rude  accident  into  that  exotic  and  ar- 
tificial hotbed.  Nor,  in  truth,  was  she  less  genuine  and  sin- 
cere than  she  appeared  to  him.  He  wooed  and  won  this  flower. 
Only  for  appearance'  sake,  and  for  due  honour  to  the  bride's 
relations,  she  craved  that  she  might  have  the  attendance  of 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  297 

her  friends  and  kindred  at  the  approaching  solemnity.  The 
request  was  too  amiable  not  to  be  conceded  :  and  in  this  so- 
licitude for  conciliating  the  good-will  of  mere  relations,  he 
found  a  presage  of  her  superior  attentions  to  himself,  when 
the  golden  shaft  should  have  "killed  the  flock  of  all  affec- 
tions else."  The  morning  came  :  and  at  ihe  Star  and  Garter, 
Richmond — the  place  appointed  for  the  breakfasting — accom- 
panied with  one  English  friend,  he  impatiently  awaited  what 
re-enforcements  the  bride  should  bring  to  grace  the  ceremony. 
A  rich  muster  she  had  made.  They  came  in  six  coaches — 
the  whole  corps  du  ballet — French,  Italian,  men  and  women. 
Monsieur  De  B.,  the  famous pimucttcr  of  the  day,  led  his  fair 
spouse,  but  craggy,  from  the  banks  of  the  Seine.  The  prima 
donna  had  sent  her  excuse.  But  the  first  and  second  bulla 
were  there  ;  and  Signor  Sc — ,  and  Signora  Ch — ,  and^Madame 
V ,  with  a  countless  cavalcade  besides  of  chorusers,  figur- 
antes, at  the  sight  of  whom  Merry  afterward  declared,  that 
"  then  for  the  first  time  it  struck  him  seriously  that  he  wa3 
about  to  marry — a  dancer."  But  there  was  no  help  for  it. 
Besides,  it  was  her  day  ;  these  were,  in  fact,  her  friends  and 
kinsfolk.  The  assemblage,  though  whimsical,  was  all  very 
natural.  But  when  the  bride — handing  out  of  the  last  coach 
a  still  more  extraordinary  figure  than  the  rest — presented  to 
him  as  her  father — the  gentleman  that  was  to  give  her  away — 
no  less  a  person  than  Signor  Delpini  himself — with  a  sort 
of  pride,  as  much  as  to  say,  See  what  I  have  brought  to  do  us 
honour! — the  thought  of  so  extraordinary  a  paternity  quite  over- 
came him;  and  slipping  away  under  some  pretence  from  the 
bride  and  her  motley  adherents,  poor  Merry  took  horse  from 
the  back  yard  to  the  nearest  seacoast,  from  which,  shipping 
himself  to  America,  he  shortly  after  consoled  himself  with  a 
more  congenial  match  in  the  person  of  Miss  Brunton  ;  relieved 
from  his  intended  clown  father,  and  a  bevy  of  painted  bufTas 
for  bridemaids. 


XIV. 

THAT  WE  SHOULD  RISE  WITH  THE  LARK. 

At  what  precise  minute  that  little  airy  musician  doffs  his 
night-gear,  and  prepares  to  tune  up  his  unseasonable  matins, 
we  are  not  naturalists  enough  to  determine.     But  for  a  mere 
N  3 


29S  ESSA1S    OF    ELIA. 

human  gentleman — that  nas  no  orchestra  business  to  call  him 
from  his  warm  bed  to  such  preposterous  exercises — we  take 
ten,  or  half  after  ten,  (eleven,  of  course,  during  this  Christmas 
solstice,)  to  be  the  very  earliest  hour  at  which  he  can  begin 
to  think  of  abandoning  his  pillow.  To  think  of  it,  we  say ; 
for  to  do  it  in  earnest  requires  another  half  hour's  good  con- 
sideration. Not  but  there  are  pretty  sun-risings,  as  we  are 
told,  and  such  like  gauds,  abroad  in  the  world,  in  summer 
time  especially,  some  hours  before  what  we  have  assigned  ; 
which  a  gentleman  may  see,  as  they  say,  only  for  getting  up. 
But,  having  been  tempted  once  or  twice,  in  earlier  life,  to 
assist  at  those  ceremonies,  we  confess  our  curiosity  abated. 
We  are  no  longer  ambitious  of  being  the  sun's  courtiers,  to 
attend  at  his  morning  levees.  We  hold  the  good  hours  of  the 
dawn  too  sacred  to  waste  them  upon  such  observances  ;  which 
have  in  them,  besides,  something  pagan  and  Persic.  To  say 
truth,  we  never  anticipated  our  usual  hour,  or  got  up  with  the 
sun,  (as  'tis  called,)  to  go  a  journey,  or  upon  a  foolish  whole 
day's  pleasuring,  but  we  suffered  for  it  all  the  long  hours  after 
in  listlessness  and  headaches  ;  Nature  herself  sufficiently  de- 
claring her  sense  of  our  presumption  in  aspiring  to  regulate 
our  frail  waking  courses  by  the  measures  of  that  celestial  and 
sleepless  traveller.  We  deny  not  that  there  is  something 
sprightly  and  vigorous,  at  the  outset  especially,  in  these  break- 
of-day  excursions.  It  is  flattering  to  get  the  start  of  a  lazy 
world  ;  to  conquer  death  by  proxy  in  his  image.  But  the 
seeds  of  sleep  and  mortality  are  in  us  ;  and  we  pay  usually 
in  strange  qualms,  before  night  falls,  the  penalty  of  the  unnat- 
ural inversion.  Therefore,  while  the  busy  part  of  mankind 
are  fast  huddling  on  their  clothes,  are  already  up  and  about 
their  occupations,  content  to  have  swallowed  their  sleep  by 
wholesale  ;  we  choose  to  linger  abed,  and  digest  our  dream*. 
It  is  the  very  time  to  recombine  the  wandering  images,  which 
night  in  a  confused  mass  presented  ;  to  snatch  them  from  for- 
getfulness ;  to  shape  and  mould  them.  Some  people  have  no 
good  of  their  dreams.  Like  fast  feeders,  they  gulp  them  too 
grossly,  to  taste  them  curiously.  We  love  to  chew  the  cud 
of  a  foregone  vision  :  to  collect  the  scattered  rays  of  a  brighter 
phantasm,  or  act  over  again,  with  firmer  nerves,  the  sadder 
nocturnal  tragedies;  to  drag  into  daylight  a  struggling  and 
half-vanishing  nightmare  ;  to  handle  and  examine  the  terrors, 
or  the  airy  solaces.  We  have  tot)  much  respect  for  these 
spiritual  communications  to  let  them  go  so  lightly.  We  are 
not.  so  stupid,  or  80  careless,  as  that  imperial  forget ter  of  his 
dreams,  that,  we  should  need  a  seer  to  remind  US  of  the  form 
of  them.     They  seem  to  us  to  have  as  much  significance  as 


KS&iYfl    Of   KLIA.  299 

our  waking  concerns ;  or  rather  to  import  us  more  nearly,  as 
mure  nearly  we  approach  by  years  to  the  shadowy  world, 
whither  we  are  hastening.  \\  e  have  shaken  hands  with  the 
world's  business  ;  we  have  done  with  it  ;  we  have  discharged 
OUrself  ol'  it.  Why  should  we  get  up  .'  we  have  neither  suit 
to  solicit,  nor  affairs  to  manage.  The  drama  has  shut  in  upon 
ns  at  the  fourth  act.  We  have  nothing  here  to  expect,  hut  in 
a  short  time  a  sickbed,  and  a  dismissal.  We  delight  to  an- 
ticipate death  by  such  shadows  as  night  affords.  We  are 
already  half  acquainted  with  ghosts.  We  were  never  much 
in  the  world.  Disappointment  early  struck  a  dark  veil  be- 
tween  us  and  its  dazzling  illusions.  Our  spirits  showed  gray 
before  our  hairs.  The  mighty  changes  of  the  world  already 
appear  as  but  the  vain  stuff  out  of  which  dreams  are  composed. 
\\  e  have  asked  no  more  of  life  than  what  the  mimic  images 
in  play-houses  present  us  with.  Even  those  types  have  waxed 
fainter.  Our  clock  appears  to  have  struck.  We  are  super- 
annltatkd.  In  this  dearth  of  mundane  satisfaction,  we  con- 
tract politic  alliances  with  shadows.  It  is  good  to  have 
I n ends  at  court.  The  abstracted  media  of  dreams  seem  no 
ill  introduction  to  that  spiritual  presence,  upon  which,  in 
no  long  tune,  we  expect  to  be  thrown.  We  are  trying  to 
know  a  little  of  the  usages  of  that  colony  ;  to  learn  the 
language  and  the  faces  we  shall  meet  with  there,  that  we 
may  be  the  less  awkward  at  our  first  coming  among  them. 
We  willingly  call  a  phantom  our  fellow,  as  knowing  we  shall 
soon  be  of  their  dark  companionship.  Therefore,  we  cherish 
dreams.  We  try  to  spell  in  ihem  the  alphabet  of  the  invisible 
world  ;  and  think  we  know  already  how  it  shall  be  with  us. 
Those  uncouth  shapes,  which,  while  we  clung  to  flesh  and 
blood,  affrighted  us,  have  become  familiar.  We  feel  attenua- 
ted into  their  meager  essences,  and  have  given  the  hand  of 
half-way  approach  to  incorporeal  being.  We  once  thought 
life  to  be  something;  but  it  has  unaccountably  fallen  from  us 
before  its  time.  Therefore  we  choose  to  dally  with  visions. 
The  sun  has  no  purposes  of  ours  to  light  us  to.  Why  should 
we  get  up  I 


300  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 


XV. 

THAT  WE  SHOULD  LIE  DOWN  WITH  THE  LAMB. 

We  could  never  quite  understand  the  philosophy  of  this 
arrangement,  or  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  in  sending  us  for 
instruction  to  these  woolly  bedfellows.  A  sheep,  when  it  is 
dark,  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  shut  his  silly  eyes,  and  sleep  if 
he  can.  Man  found  out  long  sixes.  Hail  candlelight !  with- 
out disparagement  to  sun  or  moon,  the  kindliest  luminary  of 
the  three — if  we  may  not  rather  style  thee  their  radiant  deputy, 
mild  viceroy  of  the  moon !  We  love  to  read,  talk,  sit  silent, 
eat,  drink,  sleep,  by  candlelight.  They  are  everybody's  sun 
and  moon.  This  is  our  peculiar  and  household  planet.  Want- 
ing it,  what  savage,  unsocial  nights  must  our  ancestors  have 
spent,  wintering  in  caves  and  unillumined  fastnesses !  They 
must  have  lain  about  and  grumbled  at  one  another  in  the  dark. 
What  repartees  could  have  passed,  when  you  must  have 
felt  about  for  a  smile,  and  handled  a  neighbour's  cheek  to 
be  sure  that  he  understood  it  I  This  accounts  for  the  se- 
riousness of  the  elder  poetry.  It  has  a  sombre  cast,  (try  He- 
siod  or  Ossian,)  derived  from  the  tradition  of  those  unlanterned 
nights.  Jokes  came  in  with  candles.  We  wonder  how  they 
saw  to  pick  up  a  pin,  if  they  had  any.  How  did  they  sup? 
what  a  melange  of  chance  carving  they  must  have  made  of 
it ! — here  one  had  got  a  leg  of  a  goat,  when  he  wanted  a 
horse's  shoulder — there  another  had  dipped  his  scooped  palm  in 
a  kid-skin  of  wild  honey,  when  he  meditated  right  mare's  milk. 
There  is  neither  good  eating  nor  drinking  in  fresco.  Who, 
even  in  these  civilized  times,  has  never  experienced  this, 
when  at  some  economic  table  he  has  commenced  dining 
after  dusk,  and  waited  for  the  flavour  till  the  lights  came  ? 
The  senses  absolutely  give  and  take  reciprocally.  Can  you 
tell  pork  from  veal  in  the  dark?  or  distinguish  Sherris  from 
pure  Malaga?  Take  away  the  candle  from  the  smoking  man  ; 
by  the  glimmering  of  the  left  ashes,  he  knows  that  he  is  still 
smoking,  but  he  knows  it  only  by  an  inference ;  till  the  re- 
stored light,  coining  in  aid  of  the  olfactories,  reveals  to  both 
senses  the  full  aroma.  Then  how  he  redoubles  his  puffs  ! 
how  he  burnishes  !  There  is  absolutely  no  such  thing  as 
reading,  but  by  a  candle.  We  have  tried  the  affectation  of  a 
book  at  noonday  in  gardens,  and  in  sultry  arbours;  but  it  was 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA.  301 

labour  thrown  away.  Those  gay  motes  in  the  beam  come 
about  you,  hovering  and  teasing,  like  so  many  coquettes,  that 
will  have  you  all  to  their  self,  and  are  jealous  of  your  abstrac- 
tions. By  the  midnight  taper,  the  writer  digests  his  medita- 
tions. By  the  same  light,  we  must  approach  to  their  perusal, 
if  we  would  catch  the  flame,  the  odour.  It  is  a  mockery,  all 
that  is  reported  of  the  influential  Phoebus.  No  true  poem 
ever  owed  its  birth  to  the  sun's  light.  They  are  abstracted 
works — 

"  Things  that  were  born  when  none  but  the  still  night, 
And  his  dumb  candle,  saw  his  pinching  throes." 

Marry,  daylight — daylight  might  furnish  the  images,  the  crude 
material  ;  but  for  the  fine  shapings,  the  true  turning  and  filing 
(as  mine  author  haih  it,)  they  must  be  content  to  hold  their  in- 
spiration of  the  candle.  The  mild  internal  light,  that  reveals 
them,  like  fires  on  the  domestic  hearth,  goes  out  in  the  sun- 
shine. Night  and  silence  call  out  the  starry  fancies.  Milton's 
Morning  Hymn  on  Paradise,  we  would  hold  a  good  wager, 
was  penned  at  midnight ;  and  Taylor's  richer  description  of  a 
sunrise  smells  decidedly  of  the  taper.  Even  our  self,  in  these 
our  humbler  lucubrations,  tune  our  best  measured  cadences 
(prose  has  her  cadences)  not  unfrequently  to  the  charm  of  the 
drowsier  watchman,  "  blessing  the  doors;"  or  the  wild  sweep 
of  winds  at  midnight.  Even  now  a  loftier  speculation  than  we 
have  yet  attempted  courts  our  endeavours.  We  would  endite 
something  about  the  solar  system.     Betty,  bring  the  candles 


XVI. 

THAT  A  SULKY  TEMPER  IS  A  MISFORTUNE. 

We  grant  that  it  is,  and  a  very  serious  one — to  a  man's 
friends,  and  to  all  that  have  to  do  with  him ;  but  whether  the 
condition  of  the  man  himself  is  so  much  to  be  deplored,  may 
admit  of  a  question.  We  can  speak  a  little  to  it,  being  our- 
self  but  lately  recovered — we  whisper  it  in  confidence,  reader 
— out  of  a  Ion?  and  desperate  fit  of  the  sullens.  Was  the  cure 
a  blessing?  The  conviction  which  wrought  it  came  too 
clearly  to  leave  a  scruple  of  the  fanciful  injuries — for  they  were 
mere  fancies— which  had  provoked  the  humour.  But  the  hu- 
mour itself  was  too  self-pleasing  while  it  lasted — we  know  how 


302  ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 

bare  we  lay  ourself  in  the  confession — to  be  abandoned  all  at 
once  with  the  grounds  of  it.  We  still  brood  over  wrongs  whicb 
we  know  to  have  been  imaginary;  and  for  our  old  acquaint- 
ance, N .  whom  we  find  to  have  been  a  truer  friend  than 

we  took  him  for,  we  substitute  some  phantom — a  Caius  or  a 
Titius — as  like  him  as  we  dare  to  form  it,  to  wreak  our  yet 
unsatisfied  resentments  on.  It  is  mortifying  to  fall  at  once 
from  the  pinnacle  of  neglect ;  to  forego  the  idea  of  having  been 
ill-used  and  contumaciously  treated  by  an  old  friend.  The 
first  thing  to  aggrandize  a  man  in  his  own  conceit,  is  to  con- 
ceive of  himself  as  neglected.  There  let  him  fix  if  he  can. 
To  undeceive  him  is  to  deprive  him  of  the  most  tickling  mor- 
sel within  the  range  of  self-complacency.  No  flattery  can 
come  near  it.  Happy  is  he  who  suspects  his  friend  of  an  in- 
justice ;  but  supremely  blessed,  who  thinks  all  his  friends  in  a 
conspiracy  to  depress  and  undervalue  him.  There  is  a  pleas- 
ure (we  sing  not  to  the  profane)  far  beyond  the  reach  of  all 
that  the  world  counts  joy — a  deep,  enduring  satisfaction  in  the 
depths,  where  the  superficial  seek  it  not,  of  discontent.  Were 
we  to  recite  one  half  of  this  mystery,  which  we  were  let  into 
by  our  late  dissatisfaction,  all  the  world  would  be  in  love  with 
disrespect ;  we  should  wear  a  slight  for  a  bracelet,  and  neg- 
lects and  contumacies  would  be  the  only  matter  for  courtship. 
Unlike  to  that  mysterious  book  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  study 
of  this  mystery  is  unpalatable,  only  in  the  commencement.  The 
first  sting  of  a  suspicion  is  grievous  ;  but  wait — out  of  that 
wound,  which  to  flesh  and  blood  seemed  so  difficult,  there  is 
balm  and  honey  to  be  extracted.  Your  friend  passed  you  on 
such  or  such  a  day,  having  in  his  company  one  that  you  con- 
ceived worse  than  ambiguously  disposed  towardsyou  —  passed 
you  in  the  street  without  notice.  To  be  sure,  he  is  something 
shortsighted  ;  and  it  was  in  your  power  to  have  accosted  Kim. 
Uut  facts  and  sane  inferences  are  trifles  to  a  true  adept  in  the 
science   of   dissatisfaction.      He    must    have   seen   you  ;    and 

S— ,  who  was  witli  him,  must  have  been  the  cause  of  the 

contempt.  It  galls  you,  and  well  it  may.  Hut  have  patience, 
do  home  and  make  die  worst  of  it,  and  you  are  a  made  man 
from  this  time.  Shut  yourself  up,  and — rejecting  as  an  enemy 
to  your  peace  every  whispering  suggestion  that  bin  insinuatea 
there  may  be  a  mistake — reflect  seriously  upon  the  many 
lesser  instances  which  you  have  begun  to  perceive,  in  proof 
of  your  friend's  disaffection  towards  you.  None  of  them  singly 
was  much  to  the  purpose,  but  the  aggregate  weightis  positive  ; 
and  you  have  this  last  affront  to  clinch  them.  Thus  far  the 
process  is  anything  but  agreeable.  Hut  now  to  your  re- 
lief comes  in  (he  comparative  faculty.     You  conjure  up  all  the 


ESSAYS    OF    ELI  A.  303 

kind  feelings  you  have  had  for  your  friend  ;  what  you  have 
been  to  him,  and  what  vmi  would  have  been  to  him,  if  he 
would  have  Buffered  you  ;  bow  you  have  defended  him  is  tins 

or  that  place  ;  and  his  good  Dane — -his  literary  reputation,  and 
so  forth,  was  alwavs  dearer  to  you  than  your  own  !  Your 
heart,  spite  of  itself,  yearns  towards  him.  \  uu  could  weep 
tears  of  blood  but  for  a  restraining  pride.  How  say  you  ?  do 
you  not  yet  begin  to  apprehend  a  comfort  ?  sonic  allay  of 
sweetness  iu  the  bitter  waters  ?  Stop  not  here,  nor  peuuri- 
ously  cheat  yourself  of  your  reversions.  You  are  on  vantage 
ground.  Enlarge  your  speculations,  and  take  iu  the  rest  of 
your  friends,  as  a  spark  kindles  more  sparks.  Was  there  one 
among  them  who  has  not  to  you  proved  hollow,  false,  slippery 
as  water?  Begin  to  think  that  the  relation  itself  is  inconsis- 
tent with  mortality  That  the  very  idea  of  friendship,  with  its 
component  parts,  as  honour,  fidelity,  steadiness,  exists  but  in 
your  single  bosom.  Image  yourself  to  yourself,  as  the  only 
possible  friend  in  a  world  incapable  of  that  communion. 
Now  the  gloom  thickens.  The  little  star  of  self-love  twinkles, 
that  is  to  encourage  you  through  deeper  glooms  than  this.  You 
are  not  yet  at  the  half-point  of  your  elevation.  You  arc  not 
yet,  believe  me,  half  sulky  enough.  Adverting  to  the  world  in 
general,  (as  these  circles  in  the  mind  will  spread  to  infinity,) 
reflect  with  what  strange  injustice  you  have  been  treated  in 
quarters  where;  (setting  gratitude  and  the  expectation  of 
friendly  returns  aside  as  chimeras)  you  pretended  no  claim 
bevond  justice,  the  naked  due  of  all  men.  Think  the  very 
idea  of  right  and  fit  fled  from  the  earth,  or  your  breast  the 
solitary  receptacle  of  it,  till  you  have  swelled  yourself  into 
at  least  one  hemisphere  ;  the  other  being  the  vast  Arabia  Stony 
of  your  friends  and  the  world  aforesaid.  To  grow  bigger  every 
moment  in  your  own  conceit,  and  the  world  to  lessen  :  todeily 
yourself  at  the  expense  of  your  species;  to  judge  the  world — 
this  is  the  acme  and  supreme  point  of  your  mystery — these  the 
true  PLEASURES  of  sulkiness.  We  profess  no  more  of  this 
grand  secret  than  what  ourself  experimented  on  one  rSiny 
afternoon  iu  the  last  week,  sulking  in  our  study.  We  had 
proceeded  to  the  penultimate  point,  at  which  the  true  adept 
seldom  stops,  where  the  consideration  of  benefit  forgot  is  about 
to  merge  in  the  meditation  of  general  injustice — when  a  knock 
at  the  door  was  followed  by  the  entrance  of  the  very  friend, 
whose  not  seeing  of  us  in  the  morning,  (for  we  will  now  cOnfes'd 
the  case  our  own,)  an  accidental  oversight,  had  given  rise  tj 
so  much  agreeable  generalization!  To  mortify  us  still  move 
and  take  down  the  whole  flattering  superstructure  which  pride 
had  piled  upon  neglect,  lie  had  brought  in  ir.s  hand  the   idea- 


301  ESSAYS    OF    EL1A. 

tical  S ,  in  whose  favour  we  had  suspected  him  of  the 

contumacy.  Asseverations  were  needless,  where  the  frank 
manner  of  them  both  was  convictive  of  the  injurious  nature 
of  the  suspicion.  We  fancied  that  they  perceived  our  em- 
barrassment ;  but  were  too  proud,  or  something  else,  to  confess 
to  the  secret  of  it.  We  had  been  but  too  lately  in  the  condi- 
tion of  the  noble  patient  in  Argos  : — 

"  Qui  se  credebat  miros  audire  tragoedos, 
In  vacuo  laetus  sessor  plausorque  theatro" — 

and  could  have  exclaimed  with  equal  reason  against  the 
friendly  hands  that  cured  us — 

"  Pol  me  occidistis,  amici, 
Non  servastis,  ail  ;  cui  sic  extorta  voluptas, 
Et  demptus  per  vim  mentis  gratissimus  error." 


ROSAMUND    GRAY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

It  was  noontide.  The  sun  was  very  hot.  An  old  gentle- 
woman sat  spinning  in  a  Little  arbour  at  the  dour  of  her  cot- 
tage. She  was  blind  ;  and  her  grand-daughter  was  reading 
the  Bible  to  her.  The  old  lady  had  just  left  her  work,  to  at- 
tend to  the  story  of  Ruth. 

"  Orpah  kissed  her  mother-in-law ;  but  Ruth  clave  unto 
her."  It  was  a  passage  she  could  not  let  pass  without  a 
comment.  The  moral  she  drew  from  it  was  not  very  new,  to 
be  sure.  The  girl  had  heard  it  a  hundred  times  before — and 
a  hundred  times  more  she  could  have  heard  it,  without  sus- 
pecting it  to  be  tedious.     Rosamund  loved  her  grandmother. 

The  old  lady  loved  Rosamund  too ;  and  she  had  reason 
for  so  doing.  Rosamund  was  to  her  at  once  a  child  and  a 
servant.  She  had  oidy  her  left  in  the  world.  They  too  lived 
together. 

They  had  once  known  better  days.  The  story  of  Rosa- 
mund's parents,  their  failure,  their  folly,  and  distresses,  may 
be  told  another  time.      Our  tale  hath  grief  enough  in  it. 

It  was  now  about  a  year  and  a  half  since  old  Margaret  Gray 
had  sold  off  all  her  effects,  to  pay  the  debts  of  Rosamund's 
father — just  after  the  mother  had  died  of  a  broken  heart;  for 
her  husband  had  fled  his  country  to  hide  his  shame  in  a  for- 
eign land.  At  that  period  the  old  lady  retired  to  a  small  cot- 
tage, in  the  village  of  Widford  in  Hertfordshire. 

Rosamund,  in  her  thirteenth  year,  was  left  destitute,  with- 
out fortune  or  friends  :  she  went  with  her  grandmother.  In 
all  this  time  she  had  served  her  faithfully  and  lovingly. 

Old  Margaret  Gray,  when  she  first  came  into  these  parts, 
had  eyes,  and  could  see.  The  neighbours  said,  they  had 
been  dimmed  by  weeping:  be  that  as  it  may,  she  was  latterly 
grown  quite  blind.  "God  is  very  good  to  us,  child  ;  I  can 
feel  you  yet."  This  she  would  sometimes  say;  and  we  need 
not  wonder  to  hear  that  Rosamund  clave  unto  her  grand 
mother. 
26* 


306  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

Margaret  retained  a  spirit  unbroken  by  calamity.  Thero 
was  a  principle  luithin,  which  it  seemed  as  if  no  outward  cir- 
cumstances could  reach.  It  was  a  religious  principle,  and 
she  had  taught  it  to  Rosamund  ;  for  the  girl  had  mostly  re- 
sided with  her  grandmother  from  her  earliest  years.  Indeed, 
she  had  taught  her  all  that  she  knew  herself;  and  the  old 
lady's  knowledge  did  not  extend  a  vast  way. 

Margaret  had  drawn  her  maxims  from  observation ;  and  a 
pretty  long  experience  in  life  had  contributed  to  make  her,  at 
times,  a  Utile. positive:  but  Rosamund  never  argued  with  her 
grandmother. 

Their  library  consisted  chiefly  in  a  large  family  Bible,  with 
notes  and  expositions  by  various  learned  expositors  from 
Bishop  Jewell  downward. 

This  might  never  be  suffered  to  lie  about  like  other  books 
— but  was  kept  constantly  wrapped  up  in  a  handsome  case  of 
green  velvet,  with  gold  tassels — the  only  relic  of  departed 
grandeur  they  had  brought  with  them  to  the  cottage — every- 
thing else  of  value  had  been  sold  off  for  the  purpose  above 
mentioned. 

This  Bible  Rosamund,  when  a  child,  had  never  dared  to 
open  without  permission  ;  and  even  yet,  from  habit,  continued 
the  custom.  Margaret  had  parted  with  none  of  her  authority ; 
indeed,  it  was  never  exerted  with  much  harshness  ;  and  happy 
was  Rosamund,  though  a  girl  grown,  when  she  could  obtain 
leave  to  read  her  Bible.  It  was  a  treasure  too  valuable  for 
an  indiscriminate  use  ;  and  Margaret  still  pointed  out  to  her 
grand-daughter  where  to  read. 

Besides  this,  they  had  the  "  Complete  Angler,  or  Contem- 
plative Man's  Recreation,"  with  cuts — "  Pilgrim's  Progress," 
the  first  part — a  cookery  book,  with  a  few  dry  sprigs  of  rose- 
mary and  lavender  stuck  here  and  there  between  the  leaves, 
(I  suppose,  to  point  to  some  of  the  old  lady's  most  favourite 
receipts,)  and  there  was  "Wither's  Emblems,"  an  old  book, 
and  quaint.  The  oldfashioned  pictures  in  this  last  book  were 
among  the  first  exciters  of  the  infant  Rosamund's  curiosity. 
Her  contemplation  had  fed  upon  them  in  rather  older  years. 

Rosamund  had  not  read  many  books  besides  these  ;  or,  if 
any,  they  had  been  only  occasional  companions  :  these  were 
to  Rosamund  as  old  friends,  that  she  had  long  known.  I 
know  not  whether  the  peculiar  cast  of  her  mind  might  not  be 
traced,  in  part,  to  a  tincture  she  had  received,  early  in  life, 
from  Walton  and  Wither,  from  John  Bunyan,  and  her  Bible. 

Rosamund's  mind  was  pensive  and  reflective,  rather  than 
what  passes  usually  for  clever  or  acute.  From  a  child  she 
was  remarkably  shy  and  thoughtful — this  was  taken  for  stu- 


ROSAMUND    OKAY.  307 

pidity  and  want  of  feeling  ;  and  the  child  had  been  sometimes 
whipped  for  being  a  stubborn  thing,  when  her  little  heart  was 
almost  bursting  with  affection. 

Even  now  her  grandmother  would  often  reprove  her,  when 
she  found  her  too  grave  or  melancholy  ;  give  her  sprightly 
lectures  about  good-humour  and  rational  mirth  ;  and  not  uu- 
1 1 «  i  j  mnt  I  \  tall  a  crying  herself,  to  the  great  discredit  of  her 
lecture.     Those  tears  endeared  her  the  more  to  Rosamund. 

Margaret  would  say,  "  Child,  1  love  you  to  cry,  when  I  think 
you  are  only  remembering  your  poor  dear  father  and  mother 
—  1  would  have  you  think,  about  them  sometimes — it  would  be 
strange  if  you  did,  not — but  I  fear,  Rosamund,  I  fear,  girl; 
you  sometimes  think  too  deeply  about  your  own  situation  and 
poor  prospects  in  life.  When  you  do  so,  you  do  wrong — re- 
member the  naughty  rich  man  in  the  parable.  He  never  had 
anv  good  thoughts  about  God,  ami  his  religion  :  and  that  might 
have  been  your  case." 

Rosamund,  at  these  times,  could  not  reply  to  her ;  she  was 
not  in  the  habit  of  arguing  with  her  grandmother  ;  so  she  was 
quite  silent  on  these  occasions — or  else  the  girl  knew  well 
enough  herself,  that  she  had  only  been  sad  to  think  of  the 
desolate  condition  of  her  best  friend,  to  see  her,  in  old  a^v, 
so  infirm  and  blind.  But  she  had  never  been  used  to  make 
excuses  when  the  old  ladv  said  she  was  doing  wrong. 

The  neighbours  were  all  very  kind  to  them.  The  veriest 
rustics  never  passed  them  without  a  bow,  or  a  pulling  off  of 
the  hat — some  show  of  courtesy,  awkward  indeed,  but  affec- 
tionate— with  a  "  good-morrow,  madam,''  or  "young  madam,"' 
as  it  might  happen. 

Rude  and  savage  natures,  who  seem  born  with  a  propensity 
to  express  contempt  for  anything  that  looks  like  prosperity, 
yet  felt  respect  for  its  declining  lustre. 

The  tanners  and  better  sort  of  people  (as  they  are  called) 
all  promised  to  provide  for  Rosamund  when  her  grandmother 
should  die.      Margaret  trusted  in  God,  and  believed  them. 

She  used  to  say,  "I  have  lived  many  years  in  the  world, 
and  have  never  known  people,  good  people,  to  be  left  without 
some  friend;  a  relation,  a  benefactor,  a  something.  God 
knows  our  wants — that  it  is  not  good  for  man  or  woman  to  be 
alone  ;  and  he  always  sends  us  a  helpmate,  a  leaning-place, 
a  somewhat."  Upon  this  sure  ground  of  experience  did  M  - 
»aret  build  her  trust  in  Providence. 


308  ROSAMUND    GRAY, 


CHAPTER  II. 


Rosamund  had  just  male  an  end  of  her  story,  (as  I  was 
about  to  relate,)  and  was  listening  to  the  application  of  the 
moral,  ("which  said  application  she  was  old  enough  to  have 
made  herself,  but  her  grandmother  still  continued  to  treat  her 
in  many  respects  as  a  child,  and  Rosamund  was  in  no  haste 
to  lay  claim  to  the  title  of  womanhood,)  when  a  young  gentle- 
man made  his  appearance,  and  interrupted  them. 

It  was  young  Allan  Clare,  who  had  brought  a  present  of 
peaches  and  some  roses  for  Rosamund. 

He  laid  his  little  basket  down  on  a  seat  of  the  arbour ;  and 
in  a  respectful  tone  of  voice,  as  though  he  were  addressing  a 
parent,  inquired  of  Margaret  "  how  she  did." 

The  old  lady  seemed  pleased  with  his  attentions — an- 
swered his  inquiries  by  saying,  that  "  her  cough  was  less 
troublesome  a-nights,  but  she  had  not  yet  got  rid  of  it,  and 
probably  she  never  might  ;  but  she  did  not  like  to  tease  young 
people  with  an  account  of  her  infirmities." 

A  few  kind  words  passed  on  either  side,  when  young  Clare, 
glancing  a  tender  look  at  the  girl,  who  had  all  this  time 
been  silent,  took  leave  of  them  with  saying,  "  I  shall  bring 
Elinor  to  see  you  in  the  evening." 

When  he  was  gone,  the  old  lady  began  to  prattle. 

"  That  is  a  sweet-dispositioned  youth,  and  I  do  love  him 
dearly,  I  must  say  it — there  is  such  a  modesty  in  all  he  says  or 
does — he  should  not  come  here  so  often,  to  be  sure,  but  I 
don't  know  how  to  help  it ;  there  is  so  much  goodness  in  him, 
I  can't  find  in  my  heart  to  forbid  him.  But,  Rosamund,  girl, 
I  must  tell  you  beforehand  ;  when  you  grow  older,  Mr.  Clare 
must  be  no  companion  for  you — while  you  were  both  so  young, 
it  was  all  very  well — but  the  time  is  coming,  when  folks 
will  think  harm  of  it,  if  a  rich  young  gentleman,  like  Mr. 
Clare,  comes  so  often  to  our  poor  cottage.  Dost  hear,  girl  ? 
"Why  don't  you  answer?  Come,  I  did  not  mean  to  say  any- 
thing to  hurt  you— speak  to  me,  Rosamund — nay,  I  must  not 
have  you  be  sullen — I  don't  love  people  that  are  sullen." 

And  in  this  manner  was  this  poor  soul  running  on,  unheard 
and  unheeded,  when  it  occurred  to  her,  that  possibly  the  girl 
might  not  be  within  hearing. 

And  true  it  was,  that  Rosamund  had  slunk  away  at  the  first 
mention  of  Mr.  Clare's  good  qualities  :  and  when  she  returned, 


ROSAMUND   GRAY.  309 

which  was  not  till  a  few  minutes  after  Margaret  had  made  an 
end  of  her  fine  harangue,  it  was  cert  a in  her  cheeks  did  look 
very  rosy.  That  mi^ht  have  been  from  the  heat  of  the  day 
or  from  exercise,  for  she  had  been  walking  in  the  garden. 

Margaret,  we  know,  was  blind  ;  and,  in  this  case,  it  was 
lucky  for  Rosamund  that  she  was  so,  or  she  might  have  made 
some  not  unlikely  surmises. 

I  must  not  have  my  reader  infer  from  this  that  I  at  all  think 
it  likely  a  young  maid  of  fourteen  would  fall  in  love  without 
asking  her  grandmother's  leave — the  thing  itself  is  not  to  be 
conceived. 

To  obviate  all  suspicions,  I  am  disposed  to  communicate  a 
little  anecdote  of  Rosamund. 

A  month  or  two  back  her  grandmother  had  been  giving  her 
the  strictest  prohibitions,  in  her  walks,  not  to  go  near  a  cer- 
tain spot,  which  was  dangerous  from  the  circumstance  of  a 
huge  overgrown  oak-tree  spreading  its  prodigious  arms  across 
a  deep  chalk-pit,  which  they  partly  concealed. 

To  this  fatal  place  Rosamund  came  one  day — female  curi- 
osity, we  know,  is  older  than  the  flood — let  us  not  think  hard- 
ly of  the  girl  if  she  partook  of  the  sexual  failing. 

Rosamund  ventured  farther  and  farther — climbed  along  one 
of  the  branches — approached  the  forbidden  chasm — her  foot 
slipped — she  was  not  killed — but  it  was  by  a  mercy  she  es- 
caped— other  branches  intercepted  her  fall — and  with  a  pal 
pitaling  heart  she  made  her  way  back  to  the  cottage. 

It  happened,  that  evening,  that  her  grandmother  was  in  one 
of  her  best  humours,  caressed  Rosamund,  talked  of  old  times, 
and  what  a  blessing  it  was  they  two  found  a  shelter  in  their 
little  cottage  ;  and,  in  conclusion,  told  Rosamund  "  she  was  a 
good  girl,  and  God  would  one  day  reward  her  for  her  kind- 
ness to  her  old  blind  grandmother." 

This  was  more  than  Rosamund  could  bear.  Her  morning's 
disobedience  came  fresh  into  her  mind  ;  she  felt  she  did  not 
deserve  all  this  from  Margaret ;  and  at  last  burst  into  a  fit  of 
crying,  and  made  confession  of  her  fault.  The  old  gentle- 
woman kissed  and  forgave  her. 

Rosamund  never  went  near  that  naughty  chasm  again. 

Margaret  would  never  have  heard  of  this,  if  Rosamund  had 
not  told  of  it  herself.  But  this  young  maid  had  a  delicate 
moral  sense,  which  would  not  suffer  her  to  take  advantage  of 
her  grandmother,  to  deceive  her,  or  conceal  anything  from 
her,  though  Margaret  was  old  and  blind,  and  easy  to  be  im- 
posed upon. 

Another  virtuous  trait  I  recollect  of  Rosamund,  and,  now  I 
am  in  the  vein,  will  tell  it. 


810  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

Some,  T  know,  will  think  these  things  trifles  — and  they  are 
so — but  if  these  minutiae  make  my  reader  better  acquainted 
with  Rosamund,  I  am  content  to  abide  the  imputation. 

These  promises  of  character,  hints,  and  early  indications  of 
a  sweet  nature,  are  to  me  more  dear,  and  choice  in  the  selec- 
tion, tban  any  of  those  pretty  wild  flowers,  which  this  young 
maid,  this  virtuous  Rosamund,  has  ever  gathered  in  a  fine 
May  morning,  to  make  a  posy  to  place  in  the  bosom  of  her 
old  blind  friend. 

Rosamund  had  a  very  just  notion  of  drawing,  and  would 
often  employ  her  talent  in  making  sketches  of  the  surrounding 
scenery. 

On  a  landscape,  a  larger  piece  than  she  had  ever  yet  at- 
tempted, she  had  now  been  working  for  three  or  four  months. 
She  had  taken  great  pains  with  it,  given  much  time  to  it,  and 
it  was  nearly  finished.  For  whose  particular  inspection  it  was 
designed,  I  will  not  venture  to  conjecture.  We  know  it  could 
not  have  been  for  her  grandmother's. 

One  day  she  went  out  on  a  short  errand,  and  left  her  land- 
scape on  the  table.      When  she  returned  she  found  it  gone. 

Rosamund  from  the  first  suspected  some  mischief,  but  held 
her  tongue.  At  length  she  made  the  fatal  discovery.  Mar- 
garet, in  her  absence,  had  laid  violent  hands  on  it ;  not  know- 
ing what  it  was,  but  taking  it  for  some  waste  paper,  had  torn 
it  in  half,  and  with  one  half  of  this  elaborate  composition  had 
twisted  herself  up — a  thread-paper  ! 

Rosamund  spread  out  her  hands  at  sight  of  the  disaster, 
gave  her  grandmother  a  roguish  smile,  but  said  not  a  word. 
She  knew  the  poor  soul  would  only  fret  if  she  told  her  of  it ; 
and  when  once  Margaret  was  set  a  fretting  for  other  people's 
misfortunes,  the  fit  held  her  pretty  long. 

So  Rosamund  that  very  afternoon  began  another  piece  of 
the  same  size  and  subject ;  and  Margaret,  to  her  dying  day, 
never  dreamed  of  the  mischief  she  had  unconsciously  done 


CHAPTER  III. 

Rosamund  Gray  was  the  most  beautiful  young  creature 
that  eyes  ever  beheld.  Her  face  had  the  sweetest  expression 
in  it — a  gentleness — a  modesty — a  timidity — a  certain  charm 
— a  grace  without  a  name. 

There  was  a  sort  of  melancholy  mingled  in  her  smile.     It 


ROSAMUND    GRAV.  31  ' 

was  not  the  thoughtless  levity  of  a  girl — it  was  not  the  re- 
strained simper  of  premature  womanhood — it  was  something 
which  the  poet  Young  nnglit  have  reim  inhen  d,  when  he  com- 
po&ed  that  perfect  line, 

"Soft,  modest,  melancholy,  female,  fair." 

She  was    a    mild-eyed   maid,    and    everybody    hived    her. 
Young  AUaq  Clare,  when  but  a  boy,  sighed  for  her. 
Her  yellow  hair  fell  in  bright  and  curling  clusters,  like 

'•  Those  hanging  lucks 
Of  young  Apollo." 

Her  voice  was  trembling  and  musical.  A  graceful  diffi- 
dence pleaded  for  her  whenever  she  spake — and,  if  she  said 
but  little,  that  little  found  its  way  to  the  heart. 

Y<mng,  and  artless,  and  innocent,  meaning  no  harm,  and 
thinking  none  ;  affectionate  as  a  smiling  infant — playful,  yet 
inohtrusive,  as  a  weaned  lamb — everybody  loved  her.  Young 
Allan  Clare,  when  but  a  boy,  sighed  for  her. 


The  moon  is  shining  in  so  brightly  at  my  window,  where  I 
write,  that  I  feel  it  a  crime  not  to  suspend  my  employment 
a  while  to  gaze  at  her. 

See  how  she  glideth,  in  maiden  honour,  through  the  clouds, 
Who  divide  on  either  side  to  do  her  homage. 

Beautiful  vision  ! — as  I  contemplate  thee,  an  internal  har- 
mony is  communicated  to  my  mind,  a  moral  brightness,  a  tacit 
analogy  of  mental  purity  ;  a  calm  like  that  we  ascribe  in 
fancy  to  the  favoured  inhabitants  of  thy  fairy  regions,  "  ar»enl 
fields." 

I  marvel  not,  oh  moon,  that  heathen  people,  in  the  ;<  olden 
times,"  did  worship  Thy  deity  —  Cynthia,  Diana,  Hecate. 
Christian  Europe  invokes  thee  not  by  these  names  now — her 
idolatry  is  of  a  blacker  stain:  Belial  is  her  God — she  wor- 
ships Mammon. 

False  things  are  told  concerning  thee,  fair  planet — for  I  will 
ne'er  believe  that  thou  canst  take  a  perverse  pleasure  in  dis- 
torting the  brains  of  us  poor  mortals.  Lunatics  !  moon- 
struck !  Calumny  invented,  and  folly  took  up,  these  names. 
I  would  hope  better  things  from  thy  mild  aspect  and  benign 
influences. 

Lady  of  heaven,  thou  lendest  thy  pure  lamp  to  light  the  way 
to  the  virgin  mourner,  when  she  goes  to  seek  the  tomb  where 
her  warrior  lover  lies. 


312  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

Friend  of  the  distressed,  thou  speakest  only  peace  to  the 
lonely  sufferer,  who  walks  forth  in  the  placid  evening,  beneath 
thy  gentle  light,  to  chide  at  fortune,  or  to  complain  of  changed 
friends,  or  unhappy  lovers. 

Do  I  dream,  or  doth  not  even  now  a  heavenly  calm  descena 
from  thee  into  my  bosom,  as  I  meditate  on  the  chaste  loves 
of  Rosamund  and  her  Clare  ? 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Allan  Clare  was  just  two  years  older  than  Rosamund. 
He  was  a  boy  of  fourteen  when  he  first  became  acquainted 
with  her — it  was  soon  after  she  had  come  to  reside  with  her 
grandmother  at  Widford. 

He  met  her  by  chance  one  day,  carrying  a  pitcher  in  her 
hand,  which  she  had  been  filling  from  a  neighbouring  well — 
the  pitcher  was  heavy,  and  she  seemed  to  be  bending  with  its 
weight. 

Allan  insisted  on  carrying  it  for  her — for  he  thought  it  a 
sin  that  a  delicate  young  maid  like  her  should  be  so  em- 
ployed, and  he  stand  idle  by. 

Allan  had  a  propensity  to  do  little  kind  offices  for  every- 
body— but  at  the  sight  of  Rosamund  Gray  his  first  fire  was 
kindled — his  young  mind  seemed  to  have  found  an  object,  and 
his  enthusiasm  was  from  that  lime  forth  awakened.  His  visits, 
from  that  day,  were  pretty  frequent  at  the  cottage. 

He  was  never  happier  than  when  he  could  get  Rosamund 
to  walk  out  with  him.  He  would  make  her  admire  the  scenes 
he  admired — fancy  the  wild  flowers  he  fancied — watch  the 
clouds  he  was  watching — and  not  unfrequently  repeat  to  her 
poetry  which  he  loved,  and  make  her  love  it. 

On  their  return,  the  old  lady,  who  considered  them  yet  as 
but  children,  would  bid  Rosamund  fetch  Mr.  Clare  a  glass  of 
her  currant  wine,  a  bowl  of  new  milk,  or  some  cheap  dainty, 
which  was  more  welcome,  to  Allan  than  the  costliest  delicacies 
of  a  prince's  court. 

The  boy  and  girl,  for  they  were  no  more  at  that  age,  grew 
fond  of  each  other — more  fond  than  either  of  them  suspected. 

"  They  would  sit  and  sigh, 
And  look  upon  each  other,  and  conceive 
Not  what  they  ail'd  ;  yet  something  they  did  ail, 
And  yet  were  well — and  yet  they  were  not  well ; 
And  what  was  their  disease,  they  could  not  tell." 


ROSAMUND    GRAY.  313 

And  thus, 

"  In  this  first  garden  of  their  simpleness 
They  spent  their  childhood." 

A  circumstance  had  lately  happened,  which  in  some  sort 
altered  the  nature  of  their  attachment. 

Rosamund  was  one  day  reading  the  tale  of  "  Julia  de  Rou- 
oigne" — a  book  which  young  Clare  had  lent  her. 

Allan  was  standing  by,  looking  over  her,  with  one  hand 
thrown  round  her  neck,  and  a  linger  of  the  other  pointing  to  a 
passage  in  Julia's  third  letter. 

"  Maria  !  in  my  hours  of  visionary  indulgence,  I  have  some- 
times painted  to  myself  a  husband — no  matter  whom — com- 
forting me  amid  the  distresses  which  fortune  has  laid  upon 
us.  I  have  smiled  upon  him  through  my  tears;  tears,  not  of 
anguish,  but  of  tenderness  ;  our  children  were  playing  around 
us,  unconscious  of  misfortune  ;  we  had  taught  them  to  be 
humble,  and  to  be  happy  ;  our  little  shed  was  reserved  to  us, 
and  their  smiles  to  cheer  it.  I  have  imagined  the  luxury  of 
such  a  scene,  and  affliction  became  a  part  of  my  dream  of 
happiness." 

The  girl  blushed  as  she  read,  and  trembled — she  had  a  sort 
of  confused  sensation  that  Allan  was  noticing  her — yet  sho 
durst  not  lift  her  eyes  from  the  book,  bin  continued  reading, 
scarce  knowing  what  she  read. 

Allan  guessed  the  cause  of  her  confusion,  Allan  trembled 
too — his  colour  came  and  went — his  feelings  became  impetuous 
— and,  flinging  both  arms  round  her  neck,  he  kissed  his  young 
favourite. 

Rosamund  was  vexed  and  pleased,  soothed  and  frightened, 
all  in  a  moment — a  fit  of  tears  came  to  her  relief. 

Allan  had  indulged  before  in  these  little  freedoms,  and 
Rosamund  had  thought  no  harm  of  them — but  from  this  time 
the  girl  grew  timid  and  reserved — distant  in  her  manner,  and 
careful  of  her  behaviour,  in  Allan's  presence — not  seeking  his 
society  as  before,  but  rather  shunning  it — delighting  more  to 
feed  upon  his  idea  in  absence. 

Allan  too,  from  this  day,  seemed  changed  :  his  manner  be- 
came, though  not  less  tender,  yet  more  respectful  and  diffident 
— his  bosom  felt  a  throb  it,  had  till  now  not  known,  in  the  so- 
ciety of  Rosamund — and,  if  he  was  less  familiar  with  her  than 
in  former  times,  that  charm  of  delicacy  had  superadded  a  grace 
to  Rosamund,  which,  while  he  feared,  he  loved. 

There  is  a  mysterious  character,  heightened  indeed  by  fancy 
and  passion,  but  not  without  foundation  in  reality  and  observa- 
tion, which  true  lovers  have  ever  imputed  to  the  object  of  their 
27  0 


314  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

affections.  This  character  Rosamund  had  now  acquired  with 
Allan — something  angelic,  perfect,  exceeding  ?tature. 

Young  Clare  dwelt  very  near  to  the  cottage.  He  had  lost 
his  parents,  who  were  rather  wealthy,  early  in  life  ;  and  was 
left  to  the  care  of  a  sister  some  ten  years  older  than  himself. 

Elinor  Clare  was  an  excellent  young  lady — discreet,  intel- 
ligent, and  affectionate.  Allan  revered  her  as  a  parent,  while 
he  loved  her  as  his  own  familiar  friend.  He  told  all  the  little 
secrets  of  his  heart  to  her — but  there  was  o?ie,  which  he  had 
hitherto  unaccountably  concealed  from  her — namely,  the  ex- 
tent of  his  regard  for  Rosamund. 

Elinor  knew  of  his  visits  to  the  cottage,  and  was  no  stranger 
to  the  persons  of  Margaret  and  her  grand-daughter.  She  had 
several  times  met  them  when  she  had  been  walking  with  her 
brother — a  civility  usually  passed  on  either  side — but  Elinor 
avoided  troubling  her  brother  with  any  unseasonable  questions. 

Allan's  heart  often  beat,  and  he  had  been  going  to  tell 
his  sister  all — but  something  like  shame  (false  or  true,  I  shall 
not  stay  to  inquire)  had  hitherto  kept  him  back — still  the 
secret,  unrevealed,  hung  upon  his  conscience  like  a  crime — 
for  his  temper  had  a  sweet  and  noble  frankness  in  it,  which 
bespake  him  yet  a  virgin  from  the  world. 

There  was  a  fine  openness  in  his  countenance — the  char- 
acter of  it  somewhat  resembled  Rosamund's — except  that 
more  fire  and  enthusiasm  were  discernible  in  Allan's — his 
eyes  were  of  a  darker  blue  than  Rosamund's — his  hair  was 
of  a  chestnut  colour — his  cheeks  ruddy,  and  tinged  with  brown. 
There  was  a  cordial  sweetness  in  Allan's  smile,  the  like  to 
which  I  never  saw  in  any  other  face. 

Elinor  had  hitherto  connived  at  her  brother's  attachment  to 
Rosamund.  Elinor,  T  believe,  was  a  sort  of  a  physiognomist, 
and  thought  she  could  trace  in  the  countenance  and  manner  of 
Rosamund  qualities  which  no  brother  of  hers  need  be  ashamed 
to  love. 

The  time  was  now  come  when  Elinor  was  desirous  of 
knowing  her  brother's  favourite  more  intimately — an  opportu- 
nity offered  of  breaking  the  matter  to  Allan. 

The  morning  of  the  day  in  which  he  carried  his  present  of 
fruit  and  flowers  to  Rosamund,  his  sister  had  observed  him 
more  than  usually  busy  in  the  garden,  culling  fruit  with  a 
nicety  of  choice  not  common  to  him. 

She  came  up  to  him  unobserved,  and,  taking  him  by  the 
arm,  inquired,  with  a  questioning  smile — "  What  are  you 
doing,  Allan  ?  and  who  are  those  peaches  designed  for  ?" 

"  For  Rosamund  Gray,"  he  replied — and  his  heart  seemed 
relieved  of  a  burden  which  had  long  oppressed  it. 


ROSAMUND    GRAY.  313 

u  I  have  a  mind  to  become  acquainted  with  your  handsome 
friend — will  you  introduce  me,  Allan  ?  I  think  I  should  like 
to  #o  and  see  her  this  afternoon." 

"  Do  go,  do  go,  Elinor — you  don't  know  what  .l  »ood  crea- 
ture she  is — and  old  blind  Margaret,  you  will  like  her  very 
much." 

His  sister  promised  to  accompany  him  after  dinner ;  and 
they  parted.  Allan  gathered  no  more  peaches,  but  hastily 
cropping  a  few  roses  to  fling  into  his  basket,  went  away  with 
it  half  tilled,  being  impatient  to  announce  to  Rosamund  the 
coming  of  her  promised  visiter 


CHAPTER  V. 

When  Allan  returned  home,  he  found  an  invitation  had  been 
left  for  him,  in  his  absence,  to  spend  that  evening  with  a  young 
friend,  who  had  just  quitted  a  public  school  in  London,  and 
was  come  to  pass  one  night  in  his  father's  house  at  Widford, 
previous  to  his  departure  the  next  morning  for  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity. 

It  was  Allan's  bosom  friend — they  had  not  met  for  some 
months — and  it  was  probable  a  much  longer  time  must  inter- 
vene before  they  should  meet  again. 

Yet  Allan  could  not  help  looking  a  little  blank  when  he  first 
heard  of  the  invitation.  This  was  to  have  been  an  important 
evening.  But  Elinor  soon  relieved  her  brother,  by  expressing 
her  readiness  to  go  alone  to  the  cottage. 

"  I  will  not  lose  the  pleasure  I  promised  myself,  whatever 
you  may  determine  upon,  Allan — I  wdl  go  by  myself  rather  than 
be  disappointed." 

"  Will  you,  will  you,  Elinor?" 

Elinor  promised  to  go — and,  I  believe,  Allan,  on  a  second 
thought,  was  not  very  sorry  to  be  spared  the  awkwardness  of 
introducing  two  persons  to  each  other,  both  so  dear  to  him,  but 
either  of  whom  might  happen  not  much  to  fancy  the  other. 

At  times,  indeed,  he  was  confident  that  Elinor  must  love 
Rosamund,  and  Rosamund  must  love  Elinor — but  there  were 
also  times  in  which  he  felt  misgivings — it  was  an  event  he 
could  scarce  hope  for  very  joy  ! 

Allan's  real  presence  that  evening  was  more  at  the  cottage 
than  at  the  house  where  his  bodily  semblance  was  visiting — his 

O  2 


316  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

friend  could  not  help  complaining  of  a  certain  absence  of  mind, 
a  coldness,  he  called  it. 

It  might  have  been  expected,  and  in  the  course  of  things 
predicted,  that  Allan  would  have  asked  his  friend  some  ques- 
tions of  what  had  happened  since  their  last  meeting,  what  his 
teelings  were  on  leaving  school,  the  probable  time  when  they 
should  meet  again,  and  a  hundred  natural  questions  which 
friendship  is  most  lavish  of  at  such  times ;  but  nothing  of  all 
this  ever  occurred  to  Allan — they  did  not  even  settle  the 
method  of  their  future  correspondence. 

The  consequence  was,  as  might  have  been  expected,  Allan's 
friend  thought  him  much  altered,  and,  after  his  departure,  sat 
down  to  compose  a  doleful  sonnet  about  a  "  faithful  friend  ;"  I 
do  not  find  that  he  ever  finished  it — indignation,  or  a  dearth  of 
rhymes,  causing  him  to  break  off  in  the  middle. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

In  my  catalogue  of  the  little  library  at  the  cottage.  I  forgot 
to  mention  a  book  of  Common  Prayer.  My  reader's  fancy 
might  easily  have  supplied  the  omission — old  ladies  of  Mar- 
garet's stamp  (God  bless  them)  may  as  well  be  without  their 
spectacles,  or  their  elbow-chair,  as  their  prayer-book — I  love 
them  for  it. 

Margaret's  was  a  handsome  octavo,  printed  by  Baskerville, 
the  binding  red,  and  fortified  with  silver  at  the  edges.  Out  of 
this  book  it  was  their  custom  every  afternoon  to  read  the  proper 
psalms  appointed  for  the  day. 

The  way  they  managed  was  this  :  they  took  verse  by  verse 
— Rosamund  read  her  little  portion,  and  Margaret  repeated 
hers,  in  turn,  from  memory — for  Margaret  could  say  all  the 
psalter  by  heart,  and  a  good  part  of  the  Bible  besides.  She 
would  not  uufrequently  put  the  girl  right  when  she  stumbled 
or  skipped.  This  Margaret  imputed  to  giddiness — a  quality 
which  Rosamund  was  by  no  means  remarkable  for — but  old 
ladies  like  Margaret  are  not  in  all  instances  alike  discrimina- 
tive. 

They  had  been  employed  in  this  manner  just  before  Miss 
Clare  arrived  at  the  cottage.  The  psalm  they  had  been  read- 
ing was  the  hundred  and  fourth — Margaret  was  naturally  led  by 
it  into  a  discussion  of  the  works  of  creation. 

There  had  been  thunder  in  the  course  of  the  dav — an  occa- 


ROSAMUND    GKAV.  317 

eion  of  instruction  which  the  old  lady  rever  let  pass — she 
began — 

"  Thunder  has  a  very  awful  sound — some  say  God  Almighty 
is  angry  whenever  it  thunders — that  it  is  the  voice  of  God 
speaking  to  us — for  my  part,  I  am  not  afraid  of  it — " 

And  in  this  manner  the  old  lady  was  going  on  to  particu- 
larize, as  usual,  its  beneficial  effects,  in  clearing  the  air,  de- 
stroying of  vermin,  &c,  when  the  entrance  of  Miss  Clare 
put  an  end  to  her  discourse. 

Rosamund  received  her  with  respectful  tenderness — and, 
taking  her  grandmother  by  the  hand,  said,  with  great  sweetness, 
••  Miss  (hire  is  come  to  see  you,  grandmother." 

"  I  beg  pardon,  lady — I  cannot  see  you — but  you  are  heart- 
ily welcome — is  your  brother  with  you,  Miss  Clare  ?  I  don't 
hear  him." 

"  He  could  not  come,  madam,  but  he  sends  his  love  by  me." 

"  You  have  an  excellent  brother,  Miss  Clare  ;  but  pray  do 
us  the  honour  to  take  some  refreshment — Rosamund — " 

And  the  old  lady  was  going  to  give  directions  for  a  bottle  of 
her  currant  wine,  when  Elinor,  smiling,  said  "  she  had  come  to 
take  a  cup  of  tea  with  her,  and  expected  to  find  no  ceremony." 

"  After  tea,  I  promise  myself  a  walk  with  >/ou,  Rosamund, 
if  your  grandmother  can  spare  you."  Rosamund  looked  at  her 
grandmother. 

"  Oh,  for  that  matter,  I  should  be  sorry  to  debar  the  girl 
from  any  pleasure — I  am  sure  it's  lonesome  enough  for  her  to 
be  with  mc  always  ;  and  if  Miss  Clare  will  take  you  out,  child, 
I  shall  do  very  well  by  myself  till  you  return ;  it  will  not 
be  the  first  time,  you  know,  that  I  have  been  left  here  alone — 
some  of  the  neighbours  will  be  dropping  iu  by-and-by — or,  if  not, 
I  shall  take  no  harm." 

Rosamund  had  all  the  simple  manners  of  a  child,  she  kissed 
her  grandmother,  and  looked  happy. 

All  teatime  the  old  lady's  discourse  was  little  more  than  a 
panegyric  on  young  Clare's  good  qualities.  Elinor  looked  at 
her  young  friend,  and  smiled.  Rosamund  was  beginning  to 
look  grave — but  there  was  a  cordial  sunshine  in  the  face  of 
Elinor,  before  which  any  clouds  of  reserve  that  had  been  gath- 
ering on  Rosamund's  soon  broke  away. 

"  Does  your  grandmother  ever  go  out,  Rosamund  V 

Margaret  prevented  the  girl's  reply,  by  saying,  "  My  dear 
young  lady,  I  am  an  old  woman,  and  very  infirm — Rosamund 
lakes  me  a  few  paces  beyond  the  door  sometimes — but  I  walk 
very  badly  ;  I  love  best  to  sit  in  our  little  arbour,  when  the 
sun  shines;  I  can  yet  feel  it  warm  and  cheerful ;  and  if  I  lose  the 
27* 


313  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

beauties  of  the  season,  I  shall  be  very  happy  if  you  and  Ros- 
amund can  take  delight  in  this  fine  summer  evening." 

"  I  shall  want  to  rob  you  of  Rosamund's  company  now  and 
then,  if  we  like  one  another.  I  had  hoped  to  have  seen  you, 
madam,  at  our  house.  I  don't  know  whether  we  could  not 
make  room  for  you  to  come  and  live  with  us — what  say  you  to 
it  ?  Allan  would  be  proud  to  tend  you,  I  am  sure  ;  and  Rosa- 
mund and  I  should  be  nice  company." 

Margaret  was  all  unused  to  such  kindnesses,  and  wept — 
Margaret  had  a  great  spirit — yet  she  was  not  above  accepting 
an  obligation  from  a  worthy  person ;  there  was  a  delicacy  in 
Miss  Clare's  manner — she  could  have  no  interest,  but  pure 
goodness,  to  induce  her  to  make  the  offer — at  length  the  old 
lady  spake  from  a  full  heart. 

"  Miss  Clare,  this  little  cottage  received  us  in  our  distress 
— it  gave  us  shelter  when  we  had  no  home — we  have  praised 
God  in  it — and,  while  life  remains,  I  think  I  shall  never  part 
from  it — Rosamund  does  everything  for  me — " 

"  And  will  do,  grandmother,  as  long  as  I  live ;"  and  then 
Rosamund  fell  a  crying. 

"  You  are  a  good  girl,  Rosamund  ;  and  if  you  do  but  find 
friends  when  I  am  dead  and  gone,  I  shall  want  no  better  ac- 
commodation while  I  live — but  God  bless  you,  lady,  a  thou- 
sand times,  for  your  kind  offer." 

Elinor  was  moved  to  tears,  and,  affecting  a  sprightliness, 
bade  Rosamund  prepare  for  her  walk.  The  girl  put  on  her 
white  silk  bonnet ;  and  Elinor  thought  she  never  beheld  so 
lovely  a  creature. 

They  took  leave  of  Margaret,  and  walked  out  together — • 
they  rambled  over  all  Rosamund's  favourite  haunts — through 
many  a  sunny  field — by  secret  glade  or  woodvvalk,  where  the 
girl  had  wandered  so  often  with  her  beloved  Clare. 

Who  now  so  happy  as  Rosamund  ?  She  had  ofttimes  heard 
Allan  speak  with  great  tenderness  of  his  sister — she  was  now 
rambling,  arm  in  arm,  with  that  very  sister,  the  "  vaunted  sis- 
ter" of  her  friend,  her  beloved  Clare. 

Not  a  tree,  not  a  bush,  scarce  a  wild  flower  in  their  path, 
but  revived  in  Rosamund  some  tender  recollection,  a  conver- 
sation perhaps,  or  some  chaste  endearment.  Life,  and  a  new 
scene  of  things,  were  now  opening  before  her — she  was  got 
into  a  fairy  land  of  uncertain  existence. 

Rosamund  was  too  happy  to  talk  much — but  Elinor  was 
delighted  with  her  when  she  did  talk:  the  girl's  remarks 
were  suggested,  most  of  them,  by  the  passing  scene — and 
they  betrayed,  all  ol  them,  the  liveliness  of  present  impulse: 
her  conversation  did  not  consist  in  a  comparison  of  vapid  feel- 


ROSAMUISD    GRAY.  319 

trig,  an  interchange  of  sentiment  lip-deep — it  had  all  the  fresh- 
ness of  young  sensation  in  it. 

Sninrtimes  (hey  talked  of  Allan. 

"Allan  is  very  good,"  said  Rosamund,  "  very  good  indeed 
to  my  grandmother — he  will  sit  with  her,  and  hear  her  stones, 
and  read  to  her,  and  try  to  divert  her  a  hundred  ways.  I 
wonder  sometimes  he  is  not  tired.     She  talks  him  to  death  !'' 

"  Then  you  confess,  Rosamund,  that  the  old  lady  docs  tire 
you  sometimes?" 

"  Oh  no,  I  did  not  mean  that — it's  very  different — I  am  used 
to  all  her  ways,  and  I  can  humour  her,  and  please  her,  and  I 
ought  to  do  it,  for  she  is  the  only  friend  I  ever  had  in  the 
world." 

The  new  friends  did  not  conclude  their  walk  till  it  was 
late,  and  Rosamund  began  to  be  apprehensive  about  the  old 
lady,  who  had  been  all  this  time  alone. 

On  their  return  to  the  cottage  they  found  that  Margaret 
had  been  somewhat  impatient — old  ladies,  good  old  ladies,  will 
be  so  at  times — age  is  timorous  and  suspicious  of  danger, 
where  no  danger  is. 

Besides,  it  was  Margaret's  bedtime,  for  she  kept  verv  good 
hours — indeed,  in  the  distribution  of  her  meals,  and  sundry 
other  particulars,  she  resembled  the  livers  in  the  antique  world, 
more  than  might  well  beseem  a  creature  of  this. 

So  the  new  friends  parted  for  that  night — Elinor  having 
made  Margaret  promise  to  give  Rosamund  leave  to  come  and 
see  her  the  next  day. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Miss  Clare,  we  may  be  sure,  made  her  brother  very  happy 
when  she  told  him  of  the  engagement  she  had  made  for  the 
morrow,  and  how  delighted  she  had  been  with  his  handsome 
friend. 

Allan,  I  believe,  got  little  sleep  that  night.  I  know  not 
whether  joy  be  not  a  more  troublesome  bedfellow  than  grief 
— hope  keeps  a  bodv  very  wakeful,  I  know. 

Elinor  Clare  was  the  best  good  creature — the  least  selfish 
human  being  I  ever  knew — always  at  work  for  other  people's 
good,  planning  other  people's  happiness — continually  forget- 
ful to  consult  for  her  own  personal  gratifications,  except  indi- 
rectly, in  the  welfare  of  another — while  her  parents  lived,  the 


320  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

most  attentive  of  daughters — since  they  died,  the  kindest  of 
sisters — I  never  knew  but  one  like  her. 

It  happens  that  I  have  some  of  this  young  lady's  letters  in 
my  possession — 1  shall  present  my  reader  with  one  of  them. 
It  was  written  a  short  time  after  the  death  of  her  mother,  and 
addressed  to  a  cousin,  a  dear  friend  of  Elinor's  who  was  then 
on  the  point  of  being  married  to  Mr.  Beaumont,  of  Stafford- 
shire, and  had  invited  Elinor  to  assist  at  her  nuptials.  I  will 
transcribe  it  with  minute  fidelity. 

Elinor  Clare  to  Maria  Leslie. 

Widford,  July  the  — ,  17—. 

Health,  Innocence,  and  Beauty  shall  be  thy  bridemaids, 
my  sweet  cousin.  I  have  no  heart  to  undertake  the  office. 
Alas  !  what  have  I  to  do  in  the  house  of  feasting  1 

Maria  !  1  fear  lest  my  griefs  should  prove  obtrusive.  Yet 
bear  with  me  a  little — I  have  recovered  already  a  share  of  my 
former  spirits. 

I  fear  more  for  Allan  than  myself.  The  loss  of  two  such 
parents,  within  so  short  an  interval,  bears  very  heavy  on  him. 
The  boy  hangs  about  me  from  morning  till  night.  He  is  per- 
petually forcing  a  smile  into  his  poor  pale  cheeks — you  know 
the  sweetness  of  his  smile,  Maria. 

To-day,  after  dinner,  when  he  took  his  glass  of  wine  in  his 
hand,  he  burst  into  tears,  and  would  not,  or  could  not  then  tell 
me  the  reason — afterward  he  told  me — "he  had  been  used  to 
drink  mamma's  health  after  dinner,  and  that  came  into  his 
head  and  made  him  cry."  I  feel  the  claims  the  boy  has  upon 
me — I  perceive  that  I  am  living  to  some  end — and  the  thought 
supports  me. 

Already  I  have  attained  to  a  state  of  complacent  feelings — 
my  mother's  lessons  were  not  thrown  away  upon  her  Elinor. 

In  the  visions  of  last  night  her  spirit  seemed  to  stand  at  my 
bedside — a  light,  as  of  noonday,  shone  upon  the  room — she 
opened  my  curtains — she  smiled  upon  me  with  the  same  pla- 
cid smile  as  in  her  lifetime.  I  felt  no  fear.  "  Elinor,"  she 
said,  "  for  my  sake  take  care  of  young  Allan," — and  I  awoke 
with  calm  feelings. 

Maria !  shall  not  the  meeting  of  blessed  spirits,  think  you, 
be  something  like  this? — I  think  I  could  even  now  behold  my 
mother  without  dread — I  would  ask  pardon  of  her  for  all  my 
past  omissions  of  duty,  for  all  the  little  asperities  in  my  tem- 
per, which  have  so  often  grieved  her  gentle  spirit  when  living. 
Maria!   I  think  she  would  not  turn  away  from  me. 

Oftentimes  a  feeling,  more  vivid  than  memory,  brings  her 


ROSAMUND    GRAV.  321 

before  nu — I  see  her  sit  in  lier  old  elbow-chair — her  arms 
folded  upon  her  l.i|>  —  a  tear  upon  her  cheek,  that  seems  to 
upbraid  her  unkind  daughter  lor  some  inattention — I  wipe  it 
away  and  kiss  her  honoured  lips. 

Maria  !  when  I  have  been  fancying  all  this,  Allan  will  come 
in,  with  his  poor  eyes  red  with  Weeping,  and,  taking  me  by 
the  hand,  destroy  the  vision  in  a  moment. 

1  am  prating  to  you,  my  sweet  cousin,  but  it  is  the  prattle  of 
the  heart  which  Maria  loves.  Besides,  whom  have  I  to  talk 
to  of  these  things  but  you — you  who  have  been  my  counsel- 
lor in  times  past,  my  companion,  and  sweet  familiar  friend. 
Bear  with  me  a  little — I  mourn  the  "  cherishers  of  my  in- 
fancy." 

I  sometimes  count  it  a  blessing ;  that  my  father  did  not  prove 
the  survive*.  You  know  something  of  his  story.  You  know 
there  was  a  foul  tale  current — it  was  the  busy  malice  of  that 

bad  man,  S ,  which  helped  to  spread  it  abroad — you  will 

recollect  the  active  good-nature  of  our  friends  W and 

T ;   what    pains    they   took  to   undeceive    people — with 

the  better  sort  their  kind  labours  prevailed  ;  but  there  was  still 
a  party  who  shut  their  ears.  You  know  the  issue  of  it.  My 
father's  great  spirit  bore  up  against  it  for  some  time — my 
father  never  was  a  bad  man — but  that  spirit  was  broken  at  the 
last — and  the  greatly-injured  man  was  forced  to  leave  his  old 
paternal  dwelling  in  Staffordshire — for  the  neighbours  had 
begun  to  point  at  him.  Maria  !  1  have  seen  them  point  at  him, 
and  have  been  ready  to  drop. 

In  this  part  of  the  country  where  the  slander  had  not 
reached,  he  sought  a  retreat — and  he  found  a  still  more  grate- 
ful asylum  in  the  daily  solicitudes  of  the  best  of  wives. 

"  An  enemy  hath  done  this,"  I  have  heard  him  say — and  at 
such  times  my  mother  would  speak  to  him  so  soothingly  of 
forgiveness,  and  long-suffering,  and  the  bearing  of  injuries  with 
patience;  would  heal  all  his  wounds  with  so  gentle  a  touch; 
I  have  seen  the  old  man  weep  like  a  child. 

The  gloom  that  beset  his  mind,  at  times  betrayed  him  into 
skepticism — he  has  doubted  if  there  be  a  Providence !  I 
have  heard  him  say,  "God  has  built  a  brave  world,  but  me- 
thinks  he  has  left  his  creatures  to  bustle  in  it  how  (her/  may." 

At  such  times  he  could  not  endure  to  hear  my  mother  talk 
in  a  religious  strain.  He  would  say,  "  Woman,  have  done — 
you  confound,  you  perplex  me,  when  you  talk  of  these  mat- 
ters, and  for  one  dav  at  least  unlit  me  for  the  business  of  life." 

I  have  seen  her  look  at  him — oh  Gtod,  Maria  !   such  a  look ! 
it  plainly  spake  that  she  was    willing  to  have    shared    her 
03 


322  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

precious  hope  with  the  partner  of  her  earthly  cares — hut  she 
found  a  repulse. 

Deprived  of  such  a  wife,  think  you  the  old  man  could  have 
long  endured  his  existence  ?  or  what  consolation  would  his 
wretched  daughter  have  had  to  offer  him,  but  silent  and  imbe- 
cile tears  1 

My  sweet  cousin,  you  will  think  me  tedious — and  I  am  so 
— but  it  does  me  good  to  talk  these  matters  over.  And  do  not 
you  be  alarmed  for  me — my  sorrows  are  subsiding  into  a  deep 
and  sweet  resignation.  I  shall  soon  be  sufficiently  composed, 
I  know  it,  to  participate  in  my  friend's  happiness. 

Let  me  call  her,  while  yet  1  may,  my  own  Maria  Leslie  ! 
Methinks  I  shall  not  like  you  by  any  other  name.  Beaumont ! 
Maria  Beaumont !  it  hath  a  strange  sound  with  it — I  shall 
never  be  reconciled  to  this  name — but  do  not  you  fear — Maria 
Leslie  shall  plead  with  me  for  Maria  Beaumont. 
And  now,  my  sweet  friend, 

God  love  you,  and  your 

Elinor  Clare. 

I  find  in  my  collection  several  letters,  written  soon  after  the 
date  of  the  preceding,  and  addressed  all  of  them  to  Maria 
Beaumont.  I  am  tempted  to  make  some  short  extracts  from 
these — my  tale  will  suffer  interruption  by  them — but  I  was 
willing  to  preserve  whatever  memorials  I  could  of  Elinor 
Clare. 

From  Elinor  Clare  to  Maria  Beaumont. 
(an  extract.) 

I  have  been  strolling  out  for  half  an  hour  in  the  fields ;  and 
my  mind  has  been  occupied  by  thoughts  which  Maria  has  a 
right  to  participate.  I  have  been  bringing  my  mother  to  my 
recollection.  My  heart  ached  with  the  remembrance  of  in- 
firmities, that  made  her  closing  years  of  life  so  sore  a  trial  to 
her. 

I  was  concerned  to  think  that  our  family  differences  have 
been  one  source  of  disquiet  to  her  ;  I  am  sensible  that  this  last 
we  are  apt  to  exaggerate  after  a  person's  death — and  surely, 
in  the  main,  there  was  considerable  harmony  among  the  mem- 
bers of  our  little  family — still  I  was  concerned  to  think  that 
we  ever  gave  her  gentle  spirit  disquiet. 

I  thought  on  many  years  back — on  all  my  parents'  fiiends 

— the  II s,  the  F s,  on  D S ,  and  on  many  a 

merry  evening,  in  the  fireside  circle,  in  that  comfortable  back 
parlour — it  is  never  used  now. 


110SAMUND    GKAY.  323 

Oh  yc  Malravises*  of  the  age,  ye  know  not  what  ye  lose 
in  despising  these  petty  topics  of  endeared  remembrance,  as- 
sociated circumstances  of  past  times  ;  ye  know  not  the  throb- 
bings  of  the  heart,  tender  yet  affectionately  familiar;  which 
accompany  the  dear  and  honoured  uaun is  o(  father  or  of  mother. 

Maria!  I  thought  on  all  these  things;  my  heart  ached  at 
the  review  of  them — it  yet  aches  while.  I  write  this — but  I 
am  never  so  satisfied  with  my  train  of  thoughts  as  when  they 
run  upon  these  subjects — the  tears  they  draw  from  us  meli- 
orate and  soften  the  heart,  and  keep  fresh  within  us  that  mem- 
ory of  dear  friends  dead,  which  alone  can  fit  us  for  a  read- 
mission  to  their  society  hereafter. 

From  another  letter. 

1  had  a  bad  dream  this  morning — that  Allan  was  dead — 
and  who,  of  all  persons  in  the  world,  do  you  think  put  on 
mourning  for  him?  Why — Matravis.  This  alone  might 
cure  me  of  superstitious  thoughts,  if  I  were  inclined  to  them ; 
for  why  should  Matravis  mourn  for  us,  or  our  family  1  Still 
it  was  pleasant  to  awake  and  find  it  but  a  dream.  Methinks 
something  like  an  awaking  from  an  ill  dream  shall  the  res- 
urrection from  the  dead  be.  Materially  different  from  our 
accustomed  scenes  and  ways  of  life,  the  world  to  come  may 
possibly  not  be — still  it  is  represented  to  us  under  the  notion 
of  a  rest,  a  Sabbath,  a  state  of  bliss. 

From  another  letter. 

Methinks  you  and  I  should  have  been  born  under  the  same 
roof,  sucked  the  same  milk,  conned  the  same  horn-book, 
thumbed  the  same  Testament  together :  for  we  have  been 
more  than  sisters,  Maria  ! 

Something  will  still  be  whispering  to  me  that  I  shall  one 
day  he  inmate  of  the  same  dwelling  with  my  cousin,  partaker 
with  her  in  all  the  delights  which  spring  from  mutual  good 
offices,  kind  words,  attentions  in  sickness  and  in  health — con- 
versation, sometimes  innocently  trivial,  and  at  others  profita- 
bly serious  ;  books  read  and  commented  on  together ;  meals 
ate  and  walks  taken  together — and  conferences,  how  we  may 
best  do  good  to  this  poor  person  or  that,  and  wean  our  spirits 
from  the  world's  cares,  without  divesting  ourselves  of  its  chari- 
ties. What  a  picture  I  have  drawn,  Maria  !  and  none  of  all 
these  things  may  ever  come  to  pass. 

*  This  name  will  be  explained  presently. 


324  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 


From  another  letter. 

Continue  to  write  to  me,  my  sweet  cousin.  Many  good 
thoughts,  resolutions,  and  proper  views  of  things  pass  through 
the  mind  in  the  course  of  the  day,  hut  are  lost  for  want 
of  committing  them  to  paper.  Seize  them,  Maria,  as  they 
pass,  these  Birds  of  Paradise,  that  show  themselves  and 
are  gone — and  make  a  grateful  present  of  the  precious  fugitives 
to  your  friend. 

To  use  a  homely  illustration,  just  rising  in  my  fancy — shall 
the  good  housewife  take  such  pains  in  pickling  and  pre- 
serving her  worthless  fruits,  her  walnuts,  her  apricots,  and 
quinces — and  is  there  not  much  spiritual  housewifery  in  treas- 
tiring  up  our  mind's  best  fruits — our  heart's  meditations  in  its 
most  favoured  moments  1 

This  said  simile  is  much  in  the  fashion  of  the  old  moral- 
izers,  such  as  I  conceive  honest  Baxter  to  have  been,  such  as 
Quarles  and  Wither  were,  with  their  curious,  serio-comic, 
quaint  emblems.  But  they  sometimes  reach  the  heart,  when 
a  more  elegant  simile  rests  in  the  fancy. 

Not  low  and  mean,  like  these,  but  beautifully  familiarized 
to  our  conceptions,  and  condescending  to  human  thoughts  and 
notions,  are  all  the  discourses  of  our  Lord — conveyed  in  par- 
able or  similitude,  what  easy  access  do  they  win  to  the  heart 
through  the  medium  of  the  delighted  imagination  !  speaking 
of  heavenly  things  in  fable,  or  in  simile,  drawn  from  earth, 
from  objects  common,  accustomed. 

Life's  business,  with  such  delicious  little  interruptions  as 
our  correspondence  affords,  how  pleasant  it  is  ! — why  can  we 
not  paint  on  the  dull  paper  our  whole  feelings,  exquisite  as  thev 
rise  up  ? 

From  another  letter. 

I  had  meant  to  have  left  off  at  this  place;  but  looking 
back,  I  am  sorry  to  find  too  gloomy  a  cast  tincturing  my  last 
page — a  representation  of  life  false  and  unthankful.  Life  is 
not  all  vanity  and  dis'appoiuttnent — it  hath  much  of  evil  in  it, 
no  doubt;  but  to  those  who  do  not  misuse  it,  it  affords  com- 
fort, temporary  comfort,  much,  much  that  endears  us  to  it,  and 
dignifies  it — many  true  and  good  feelings,  I  trust,  of  which 
we  need  not  be  ashamed — hours  of  tranquillity  and  hope. 
But  the  morning  was  dull  and  overcast,  and  my  spirits  were 
under  a  cloud.     I  feel  my  error. 

Is  it  no  blessing,  that  we  two  love  one  another  so  dearly — 


ROSAMUND    GRAY.  325 

that  Allan  is  left  me — that  you  are  settled  in  life — that  worldly 
affairs  go  smooth  with  us  both — above  all,  that  our  lot  hath 
fallen  to  us  in  a  Christian  country  J  Maria!  these  things  are 
not  little.  I  will  consider  life  as  a  long  feast,  and  not  forget 
to  say  grace. 

From  another  letter. 

Allan  has  written  to  me — you  know,  he  is  on  a  visit  at 
his  old  tutor's  in  Gloucestershire — he  is  to  return  home  on 
Thursday — Allan  is  a  dear  boy— he  concludes  his  letter,  which 
is  very  affectionate  throughout,  in  this  manner : — 

"  Elinor,  I  charge  you  to  learn  the  following  stanza  by 
heart — 

'  The  monarch  may  forget  his  crown, 

That  on  his  head  an  hour  hath  been; 
The  bridegroom  may  forget  his  bride 

Was  made  his  wedded  wife  yestreen  ; 
The  mother  may  forget  her  child, 

That  smiles  so  sweetly  on  her  knee  : 
But  I'll  remember  thee,  Glencairn, 

And  all  that  thou  hast  done  for  me.' 

"  The  lines  are  in  Burns — you  know,  we  read  him  for  the 
first  time  together  at  Margate — and  I  have  been  used  to  refer 
them  to  you,  and  to  call  you,  in  my  mind,  Glencairn — for  you 
were  always  very  good  to  me.  I  had  a  thousand  failings,  but 
you  would  love  me  in  spite  of  them  all.  I  am  going  to  drink 
your  health." 

I  shall  detain  my  reader  no  longer  from  the  narrative. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

They  had  but  four  rooms  in  the  cottage.  Margaret  slept 
in  the  biggest  room  up  stairs,  and  her  grand-daughter  in  a  kind 
of  closet  adjoining,  where  she  could  be  within  hearing,  if  her 
grandmother  should  call  her  in  the  night. 

The  «irl  was  often  disturbed  in  that  manner— two  or  three 
times  in  a  sight  she  has  been  forced  to  leave  her  bed  to  fetch 
her  grandmother's  cordials,  or  do  some  little  service  for  her — 
but  she  knew  that  Margaret's  ailings  were  real  and  pressing, 
and  Rosamund  never  complained — never  suspected  that  her 
grandmother's  requisitions  had  anything  unreasonable  in  them. 
23 


326  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

The  night  she  parted  with  Miss  Clare  she  had  helped  Mar- 
garet to  bed,  as  usual — and,  after  saying  her  prayers,  as  the 
custom  was,  kneeling  by  the  old  lady's  bedside,  kissed  her 
grandmother,  and  wished  her  a  good-night — Margaret  blessed 
her,  and  charged  her  to  go  to  bed  directly.  It  was  her  cus- 
tomary injunction,  and  Rosamund  had  never  dreamed  of  diso- 
beying. 

So  she  retired  to  her  little  room.  The  night  was  warm  and 
clear — the  moon  very  bright — her  window  commanded  a  view 
of  scenes  she  had  been  tracing  in  the  daytime  with  Miss 
Clare. 

All  the  events  of  the  day  past,  the  occurrences  of  their 
walk,  arose  in  her  mind.  She  fancied  she  should  like  to  re- 
trace those  scenes — but  it  was  now  nine  o'clock,  a  late  hour 
in  the  village. 

Still  she  fancied  it  would  be  very  charming — and  then  her 
grandmother's  injunction  came  powerfully  to  her  recollection 
— she  sighed,  and  turned  from  the  window — and  walked  up 
and  down  her  little  room. 

Ever,  when  she  looked  at  the  window,  the  wish  returned. 
It  was  not  so  very  late.  The  neighbours  were  yet  about, 
passing  under  the  window  to  their  homes — she  thought,  and 
thought  again,  till  her  sensations  became  vivid,  even  to  pain- 
fulness —  her  bosom  was  aching  to  give  them  vent. 

The  village  clock  struck  ten ! — the  neighbours  ceased  to 
pass  under  the  window.  Rosamund,  stealing  down  siairs, 
fastened  the  latch  behind  her,  and  left  the  cottage. 

One  that  knew  her  met  her,  and  observed  her  with  some 
surprise.  Another  recollects  having  wished  her  a  good-night. 
Rosamund  never  returned  to  the  cottage. 

An  old  man,  that  lay  sick  in  a  small  house  adjoining  to 
Margaret's,  testified  the  next  morning  that  he  had  plainly 
heard  the  old  creature  calling  for  her  granddaughter.  All  the 
night  long  she  made  her  moan,  and  ceased  not  to  call  upon  the 
name  of  Rosamund.  But  no  Rosamund  was  there — the  voice 
died  away,  but  not  till  near  daybreak. 

When  the  neighbours  came  to  search  in  the  morning,  Mar- 
garet was  missing  !  She  had  straggled  out  of  bed,  and  made 
her  way  into  Rosamund's  room — worn  out  with  fatigue  and 
fright,  when  she  found  the  girl  not  there,  she  had  laid 
herself  down  to  die — and,  it.  is  thought,  she  died  praying — 
for  she  was  discovered  in  a  kneeling  posture,  her  arms  and 
face  extended  on  the  pillow,  where  Rosamund  had  slept  the 
night  before — a  smile  was  on  her  face  in  death. 


ROSAMUND    G1UV.  327 


CHAPTER  IX. 


Fain  would  I  draw  a  veil  over  the  transactions  of  that  night 
—but  I  cannot — grief  and  burning  shame  forbid  mi:  to  be 
silent — black  deeds  are  about  to  be  made  public,  which  reflect 
a  stain  upon  our  common  nature. 

Rosamund,  enthusiastic  and  improvident,  wandered  unpro- 
tected to  a  distance  from  her  guardian  doors — through  lonely 
glens  and  wood  walks,  where  she  had  rambled  many  a  day 
in  safety — till  she  arrived  at  a  shady  copse,  out  of  the  hearing 
of  any  human  habitation. 

Matrmis  met  her.     "  Flown  with  insolence  and  wine,"  re 
turning  home  late  at  night,  he  passed  that  way  ! 

Matravis  was  a  very  ugly  man.  Sallow  onmplexioned ! 
and,  if  hearts  can  wear  that  colour,  his  heart  was  sallow  com- 
plexioned  also. 

A  young  man  with. gray  deliberation!  cold  and  systematic 
in  all  his  plans  ;  and  all  his  plans  were  evil.  His  very  lust 
was  systematic. 

He  would  brood  over  his  bad  purposes  for  sucli  a  dreary 
length  of  time,  that  it  might  have  been  expected  some  solitary 
check  of  conscience  must  have  intervened  to  save  him  from 
commission.  But  that  light  from  Heaven  was  extinct  in  his 
dark  bosom. 

Nothing  that  is  great,  nothing  that  is  amiable,  existed  for 
this  unhappy  man.  He  feared,  he  envied,  he  suspected  ;  but 
he  never  loved.  The  sublime  and  beautiful  in  nature,  the  ex- 
cellent and  becoming  in  morals,  were  things  placed  beyond 
the  caput  ity  of  his  sensations.  He  loved  not  poetry — nor 
ever  took  a  lonelv  walk  to  meditate — never  beheld  virtue, 
which  he  did  not  try  to  disbelieve,  or  female  beauty  and  inno- 
cence, which  he  did  not  lust  to  contaminate. 

A  sneer  was  perpetually  upon  his  face,  and  malice  grinning 
at  his  heart.  He  would  say  the  most  ill-natured  things  with 
the  least  remorse  of  any  man  I  ever  knew.  This  gained  him 
the  reputation  of  a  wit — other  traits  got  him  the  reputation  of 
a  villain. 

And  this  man  formerly  paid  his  court  to  Elinor  Clare  ! — 
with  what  success  I  leave  my  readers  to  determine.  It  was 
not  in  Elinor's  nature  to  despise  any  living  thing — but,  in  the 
estimation  of  this  man,  to  be  rejected  was  to  be  despised — and 
Matravis  never  forgave- . 


328  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

He  had  long  turned  his  eyes  upon  Rosamund  Gray.  To 
steal  from  the  bosom  of  her  friends  the  jewel  they  prized  so 
much,  the  little  ewe  lamb  they  held  so  dear,  was  a  scheme  of 
delicate  revenge,  and  Matravis  had  a  twofold  motive  for  ac- 
complishing this  young  maid's  ruin. 

Often  had  he  met  her  in  her  favourite  solitudes,  but  found 
her  ever  cold  and  inaccessible.  Of  late  the  girl  had  avoided 
straying  far  from  her  own  home,  in  the  fear  of  meeting  him — 
but  she  had  never  told  her  fears  to  Allan. 

Matravis  had,  till  now,  been  content  to  be  a  villain  within 
the  limits  of  the  law ;  but,  on  the  present  occasion,  hot  fumes 
of  wine,  co-operating  with  his  deep  desire  of  revenge,  and  the 
insolence  of  an  unhoped-for  meeting,  overcame  his  customary 
prudence,  and  Matravis  rose,  at  once,  to  an  audacity  of  glori- 
ous mischief. 

Late  at  night  he  met  her,  a  lonely,  unprotected  virgin — no 
friend  at  hand — no  place  near  of  refuge. 

Rosamund  Gray,  my  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful  for  thee 
— I  loath  to  tell  the  hateful  circumstances  of  thy  wrongs. 
Night  and  silence  were  the  only  witnesses  of  this  young 
maid's  disgrace — Matravis  fled. 

Rosamund,  polluted  and  disgraced,  wandered,  an  abandoned 
thing,  about  the  fields  and  meadows  till  daybreak.  Not  ca- 
ring to  return  to  the  cottage,  she  sat  herself  down  before  the 
gate  of  Miss  Clare's  house — in  a  stupor  of  grief. 

Elinor  was  just  rising,  and  had  opened  the  windows  of  her 
chamber,  when  she  perceived  her  desolate  young  friend.  She 
ran  to  embrace  her — she  brought  her  into  the  house — she 
took  her  to  her  bosom — she  kissed  her — she  spake  to  her  ; 
but  Rosamund  could  not  speak. 

Tidings  came  from  the  cottage.  Margaret's  death  was  an 
event  which  could  not  be  kept  concealed  from  Rosamund. 
When  the  sweet  maid  heard  of  it,  she  languished,  and  fell 
sick — she  never  held  up  her  head  after  that  time. 

If  Rosamund  had  been  a  sister,  she  could  not  have  been 
kindlier  treated  than  by  her  two  friends. 

Allan  had  prospects  in  life — might,  in  time,  have  married 
into  any  of  the  first  families  in  Hertfordshire — but  Rosamund 
Gray,  humbled  though  she  was,  and  put  to  shame,  had  yet  a 
charm  for  him — and  he  would  have  been  content  to  share  his 
fortunes  with  her  yet,  if  Rosamund  would  have  lived  to  be  his 
companion. 

But  this  was  not  to  be — and  the  girl  soon  after  died.  She 
expired  in  the  arms  of  Elinor — quiet,  gentle,  as  she  lived — 
thankful  that  she  died  not  among  Btrangers — and  expressing 
by  signs,  rather  than  words,  a  gratitude  for  the  most  trifling 


ROSAMUND    OKAY.  329 

services,  the  common  offices  of  humanity.  She  died  uncom- 
plaining ;  and  this  young  maid,  this  untaught  Rosamund,  might 
have  given  a  lesson  to  the  grave  philosopher  in  death. 


CHAPTER  X. 

I  was  but  a  boy  when  these  events  took  place.  All  the 
village  remember  the  story,  and  tell  of  Rosamund  Gray  and 
old  blind  Margaret. 

I  parted  from  Allan  Clare  on  that  disastrous  night,  and  set 
out  for  Edinburgh  the  next  morning,  before  the  facts  were  com- 
monly known — I  heard  not  of  them — and  it  was  four  months 
before  I  received  a  letter  from  Allan. 

"  His  heart,"  he  told  me,  "  was  gone  from  him — for  his 
sister  had  died  of  a  phrensy  fever  '" — not  a  word  of  Rosamund 
in  the  letter — I  was  left  to  collect  her  story  from  sources  which 
may  one  day  be  explained. 

I  soon  after  quitted  Scotland,  on  the  death  of  my  father,  and 
returned  to  my  native  village.  Allan  had  left  the  place,  and 
1  could  gain  no  information  whether  he  were  dead  or  living. 

I  passed  the  cottage.  I  did  not  dare  to  look  that  wav,  or 
to  inquire  who  lived  there.  A  little  dog,  that  had  been  Rosa- 
mund's, was  yelping  in  my  path.  I  laughed  aloud  like  one 
mad,  whose  mind  had  suddenly  gone  from  him — I  stared  va- 
cantly around  me,  like  one  alienated  from  common  perceptions. 

But  I  was  young  at  that  time,  and  the  impression  became 
gradually  weakened  as  I  mingled  in  the  business  of  life.  It 
is  now  ten  years  since  these  events  took  place,  and  I  some- 
times think  of  them  as  unreal.  Allan  Clare  was  a  dear  friend 
to  me — but  there  are  times  when  Allan  and  his  sister,  Mar- 
garet and  her  granddaughter,  appear  like  personages  of  a  dream 
— an  idle  dream. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Strange  things  have  happened  unto  me — I  seem  scarce 
awake — but  I  will  recollect  my  thoughts,  and  try  to  give  an 
account  of  what  has  befallen  me  in  the  few  last  weeks. 

28* 


330  ROSAMUND   GRAY. 

Since  my  father's  death  our  family  have  resided  in  London. 
I  am  in  practice  as  a  surgeon  there.  My  mother  died  two 
years  after  we  left  Widford. 

A  month  or  two  ago  I  had  been  busying  myself  in  drawing 
up  the  above  narrative,  intending  to  make  it  public.  The 
employment  had  forced  my  mind  to  dwell  upon  facts,  which 
had  begun  to  fade  from  it — the  memory  of  old  times  became 
vivid,  and  more  vivid — I  felt  a  strong  desire  to  revisit  the 
scenes  of  my  native  village — of  the  young  loves  of  Rosamund 
and  her  Clare. 

A  kind  of  dread  had  hitherto  kept  me  back ;  but  I  was 
restless  now,  till  I  had  accomplished  my  wish.  I  sat  out  one 
morning  to  walk — I  reached  Widford  about  eleven  in  the 
forenoon — after  a  slight  breakfast  at  my  inn — where  I  was 
mortified  to  perceive  the  old  landlord  did  not  know  me  again 
— (old  Thomas  Billet — he  has  often  made  angle  rods  for 
me  when  a  child) — I  rambled  over  all  my  accustomed 
haunts. 

Our  old  house  was  vacant,  and  to  be  sold.  I  entered,  un 
molested,  into  the  room  that  had  been  my  bedchamber.  I 
kneeled  down  on  the  spot  where  my  little  bed  had  stood — I 
felt  like  a  child — I  prayed  like  one — it  seemed  as  though  old 
times  were  to  return  again — I  looked  round  involuntarily,  ex- 
pecting to  see  some  face  I  knew — but  all  was  naked  and  mute. 
The  bed  was  gone.  My  little  pane  of  painted  window,  through 
which  I  loved  to  look  at  the  sun  when  I  awoke  in  a  fine  sum- 
mer's morning,  was  taken  out,  and  had  been  replaced  by  one 
of  common  glass. 

I  visited,  by  turns,  every  chamber — they  were  all  desolate 
and  unfurnished,  one  excepted,  in  which  the  owner  had  left  a 
harpsichord,  probably  to  be  sold — I  touched  the  keys — I 
played  some  old  Scottish  tunes,  which  had  delighted  me  when 
a  child.  Past  associations  revived  with  the  music — blended 
with  a  sense  of  unreality,  which  at  last  became  too  powerful 
— 1  rushed  out  of  the  room  to  give  vent  to  my  feelings. 

I  wandered,  scarce  knowing  where,  into  an  old  wood  that 
stands  at  the  back  of  the  house — we  called  it  the  wilderness. 
A  well-known  form  was  missing,  that  used  to  meet  me  in  this 
place — it  was  thine,  Ben  Moxam — the  kindest,  gentlest,  po- 
litest of  human  beings,  yet  was  he  nothing  higher  than  a 
gardener  in  the  family.  Honest  creature,  thou  didst  never 
pass  me  in  my  childish  rambles  without  a  soft  speech  and  a 
smile.  I  remember  thy  good-natured  face.  But  there  is  one 
thing,  for  which  I  can  never  forgive  thee,  Ben  Moxam — that 
thou  didst  join  with  an  old  maiden  aunt  of  mine  in  a  cruel 


ROSAMUND    ORAV.  331 

plot,  to  lop  away  the  hanging  branches  of  the  old  fir-trees. 
I  remember  them  sweeping  to  the  ground. 

I  have  often  left  my  childish  sport*  to  ramble  in  this  place 
— its  glooms  and  its  solitude  had  ;i  mysterious  charm  for  my 
young  mind,  nurturing  within  me  that  love  of  quietness  and 
lonely  thinking  which  have  accompanied  me  to  maturer  years. 
In  this  wilderness  1  found  myself  after  a  ten  years'  absence. 
Its  stately  fir-trees  were  yet  standing,  with  all  their  luxuriant 
company  of  underwood — the  squirrel  was  there,  and  the  melan- 
choly cooings  of  the  wood-pigeon — all  was  as  I  had  left  it — 
my  heart  softened  at  tlie  sight — it  seemed  as  though  my  char- 
acter had  been  suffering  a  change  since  I  forsook  these  shades. 

My  parents  were  both  dead — 1  had  no  counsellor  left,  no 
experience  of  age  to  direct  me,  no  sweet  voice  of  reproof. 
The  Loud  had  taken  away  my  friends,  and  I  knew  not  where 
he  had  laid  them.  I  paced  round  the  wilderness,  seeking  a 
comforter.  I  prayed  that  I  might  be  restored  to  that  state  of 
innocence  in  which  I  had  wandered  in  those  shades. 

Methought  my  request  was  heard — for  it  seemed  as  though 
the  stains  of  manhood  were  passing  from  me,  and  I  were  re- 
lapsing into  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  childhood.  I  was 
content  to  have  been  moulded  into  a  perfect  child.  I  stood 
still,  as  in  a  trance.  I  dreamed  that  I  was  enjoying  a  person- 
al intercourse  with  my  heavenly  Father — and,  extravagantly, 
put  off  the  shoes  from  my  feet — for  the  place  where  1  stood, 
I  thought,  was  holy  ground. 

This  state  of  mind  could  not  last  long — and  I  returned  with 
languid  feelings  to  my  inn.  I  ordered  my  dinner — green 
peas  and  a  sweetbread — it  had  been  a  favourite  dish  with  me 
in  my  childhood — I  was  allowed  to  have  it  on  my  birthdays. 
I  was  impatient  to  see  it  come  upon  the  table — but,  when  it 
came,  I  could  scarce  eat  a  mouthful — my  tears  choked  me.  I 
called  for  wine — I  drank  a  pint  and  a  half  of  red  wine — and 
not  till  then  had  I  dared  to  visit  the  churchyard,  where  my 
parents  were  interred. 

The  cottage  lay  in  my  way — Margaret  had  chosen  it  for 
that  very  reason,  to  be  near  the  church — lor  the  old  lady  was 
regular  in  her  attendance  on  public  worship — I  passed  on — 
and  in  a  moment  found  myself  among  the  tombs. 

I  had  been  present  at  my  father's  burial,  and  knew  the  spot 
again — my  mother's  funeral  I  was  prevented  by  illness  from 
attending — a  plain  stone  was  placed  over  the  grave,  with  their 
initials  carved  upon  it — for  they  both  occupied  one  grave. 

1  prostrated  myself  before  the  spot — 1  kissed  the  earth 
that  covered  them — 1  contemplated,  with  gloomy  delight,  the 
time  when  1  should  mingle  my  dust  with  theirs — and  kneeled. 


332  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

with  my   arms  incumbent  on  the  gravestone,  in   a   kind  of 
mental  prayer — for  I  could  not  speak. 

Having  performed  these  duties,  I  arose  with  quieter  feel- 
ings, and  felt  leisure  to  attend  to  indifferent  objects.  Still  I 
continued  in  the  churchyard,  reading  the  various  inscriptions, 
and  moralizing  on  them  with  that  kind  of  levity  which  will 
not  unfrequently  spring  up  in  the  mind  in  the  midst  of  deep 
melancholy. 

I  read  of  nothing  but  careful  parents,  loving  husbands,  and 
dutiful  children.  I  said  jestingly,  Where  be  all  the  bad  people 
buried?  Bad  parents,  bad  husbands,  bad  children — what 
cemeteries  are  appointed  for  these  ?  do  they  not  sleep  in  con- 
secrated ground?  or  is  it  but  a  pious  fiction,  a  generous  over- 
sight, in  the  survivers,  which  thus  tricks  out  men's  epitaphs 
when  dead,  who,  in  their  lifetime,  discharged  the  offices  of 
life,  perhaps,  but  lamely.  Their  failings,  with  their  re- 
proaches, now  sleep  with  them  in  the  grave.  Man  wars  not 
with  the  dead.     It  is  a  trait  of  human  nature  for  which  I  love  it. 

I  had  not  observed,  till  now,  a  little  group  assembled  at  the 
other  end  of  the  churchyard ;  it  was  a  company  of  children, 
who  were  gathered  round  a  young  man,  dressed  in  black,  sit- 
ting on  a  gravestone. 

He  seemed  to  be  asking  them  questions — probably  about 
their  learning — and  one  little  dirty  ragged  headed  fellow  was 
clambering  up  his  knees  to  kiss  him.  The  children  had  been 
eating  black  cherries — for  some  of  the  stones  were  scattered 
about,  and  their  mouths  were  smeared  with  them. 

As  I  drew  near  them,  I  thought  I  discerned  in  the  stranger 
a  mild  benignity  of  countenance,  which  I  had  somewhere 
seen  before — I  gazed  at  him  more  attentively. 

It  was  Allan  Clare  !  sitting  on  the  grave  of  his  sister. 

I  threw  my  arms  about  his  neck.  I  exclaimed  "  Allan" — he 
turned  his  eyes  upon  me — he  knew  me — we  both  wept  aloud 
— it  seemed  as  though  the  interval  since  we  parted  had  been  as 
nothing — I  cried  out,  "  Come  and  tell  me  about  these  things." 

I  drew  him  away  from  his  little  friends — he  parted  with  a 
show  of  reluctance  from  the  churchyard — Margaret  and  her 
grand-daughter  lay  buried  there,  as  well  as  his  sister — I  took 
him  to  my  inn — secured  a  room,  where  we  might  be  private — 
ordered  fresh  wine — scarce  knowing  what  I  did,  I  danced  for  joy. 

Allan  was  quite  overcome,  and,  taking  me  by  the  hand,  he 
said,  "  This  repays  me  for  all." 

It  was  a  proud  day  for  me — I  had  found  the  friend  I  thought 
dead — earth  seemed  to  me  no  longer  valuable,  than  as  it  con- 
tained him;  and  existence  a  blessing  no  longer  than  while  I 
should  live  to  be  his  comforter. 


ROSAMUND    GRAY.  333 

I  began  at  leisure  to  survey  him  with  more  attention.  Time 
and  grief  had  left  few  traces  of  that  fine  enthusiasm  which 
once  burned  in  his  countenance— his  eyes  had  lost  their  ori- 
ginal lire,  but  they  retained  an  uncommon  Bweetnese,  and, 
whenever  they  were  turned  upon  me,  their  smile  pierced  to 
my  heart 

"  Allan,  I  fear  you  have  been  a  sufferer."  He  replied  not, 
and  I  could  not  press  him  further.  1  could  not  call  the  dead 
to  life  again. 

So  we  drank,  and  told  old  stories — and  repeated  old  poetry 
— and  sang  old  songs — as  if  nothing  had  happened.  We  sat 
till  very  late — I  forgot  that  1  had  purposed  returning  to  town 
that  evening — to  Allan  ail  places  were  alike — I  grew  noisy, 
he  grew  cheerful — Allan's  old  manners,  old  enthusiasm,  were 
returning  upon  him — we  laughed,  we  wept,  we  mingled  our 
tears,  and  talked  extravagantly. 

Allan  was  my  chamber-fellow  that  night — and  lay  awake, 
planning  schemes  of  living  together  under  the  same  roof,  en- 
tering upon  similar  pursuits — and  praising  God  that  we  had 
met. 

I  was  obliged  to  return  to  town  the  next  morning,  and  Allan 
proposed  to  accompany  me.  "  Since  the  death  of  his  sister," 
he  told  me,  "  he  had  been  a  wanderer." 

In  the  course  of  our  walk  he  unbosomed  himself  without 
reserve — told  me  many  particulars  of  his  way  of  life  for  the 
last  nine  or  ten  years,  which  I  do  not  feel  myself  at  liberty  to 
divulge. 

Once,  on  my  attempting  to  cheer  him,  when  I  perceived  him 
over  thoughtful,  he  replied  to  me  in  these  words  :  — 

"  Do  not  regard  me  as  unhappy  when  you  catch  me  in 
these  moods.  I  am  never  more  happy  than  at  times  when, 
by  the  cast  of  my  countenance,  men  judge  me  most  miserable. 

'•  My  friend,  the  events  which  have  left  this  sadness  behind 
them  are  of  no  recent  date.  The  melancholy,  which  comes 
over  me  with  the  recollection  of  them,  is  not  hurtful,  but  only 
tends  to  soften  and  tranquillize  my  mind,  to  detach  me  from 
the  restlessness  of  human  pursuits. 

"The  stronger  I  feel  this  detachment,  the  more  I  find  my- 
self drawn  heavenward  to  the  contemplation  of  spiritual  objects. 

"I  love  to  keep  old  friendships  aiive  and  warm  within  me, 
because  I  expect  a  renewal  of  them  in  the  world  of  spirits. 

"I  am  a  wandering  and  unconnected  thing  on  the  earth.  I 
have  made  no  new  friendships  that  can  compensate  me  for 
the  loss  of  the  old — and  the  more  I  know  mankind,  the  more 
does  it  become  necessary  for  me  to  supply  their  loss  by  little 
images,  recollections,  and  circumstances  of  past  pleasures. 


334  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

"I  am  sensible  that  lam  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  very 
worthy  people,  plain-hearted  souls,  sincere  and  kind.  But 
they  have  hitherto  eluded  my  pursuit,  and  will  continue  to 
bless  the  little  circle  of  their  families  and  friends,  while  I  must 
remain  a  stranger  to  them. 

"  Kept  at  a  distance  by  mankind,  I  have  not  ceased  to  love 
them — and  could  I  find  the  cruel  persecutor,  the  malignant 
instrument  of  God's  judgments  on  me  and  mine,  I  think  I 
would  forgive,  and  try  to  love  him  too. 

"  I  have  been  a  quiet  sufferer.  From  the  beginning  of  my 
calamities  it  was  given  to  me  not  to  see  the  hand  of  man 
in  them.  I  perceived  a  mighty  arm,  which  none  but  myself 
could  see,  extended  over  me.  I  gave  my  heart  to  the  Purifier, 
and  my  will  to  the  Sovereign  Will  of  the  universe.  The  irre- 
sistible wheels  of  destiny  passed  on  in  their  everlasting  rota- 
tion— and  I  suffered  myself  to  be  carried  along  with  them 
without  complaining." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Allan  told  me,  that  for  some  years  past,  feeling  himself 
disengaged  from  every  personal  tie,  but  not  alienated  from 
human  sympathies,  it  had  been  his  taste,  his  humour  he  called 
it,  to  spend  a  great  portion  of  his  time  in  hospitals  and  lazar- 
houscs. 

He  had  found  a  wayward  pleasure,  he  refused  to  name  it  a 
virtue,  in  tending  a  description  of  people,  who  had  long  ceased 
to  expect  kindness  or  friendliness  from  mankind,  but  were 
content  to  accept  the  reluctant  services,  which  the  oftentimes 
unfeeling  instruments  and  servants  of  these  well-meant  insti- 
tutions deal  out  to  the  poor  sick  people  under  their  care. 

It  is  not  medicine,  it  is  not  broths  and  coarse  meats,  served 
up  at  a  stated  hour  with  all  the  hard  formalities  of  a  prison — 
it  is  not  the  scanty  dole  of  a  bed  to  die  on — which  dying  man 
requires  from  his  species. 

Looks,  attentions,  consolations — in  a  word,  sympathies,  are 
what  a  man  most  needs  in  this  awful  close  of  mortal  Buffer* 
ings.  A  kind  look,  a  smile,  a  drop  of  cold  water  to  the 
parched  lip — for  these  things  a  man  shall  bless  you  in  death. 

And  these  better  things  than  cordials  did  Allan  love  to  ad- 
minister— to  stay  by  a  bedside  the  whole  day,  when  some- 
thing disgusting  in  a  patient's  distemper  has  kept  the  very 


ROSAMUND    GRAY.  333 

nurses  at  a  distance — to  sit  by,  while  the  poor  wretch  got  a 
little  sleep — and  be  there  to  smile  upon  hira  when  he  awoke 
^to  Blip  a  guinea,  now  and  then,  into  the  hand*  of  a  nur.se  or 
attendant — -these  things  have  been  to  Allan  as  privileges,  for 
which  he  was  content  to  live,  choice  marks,  and  circumstances 
of  his  .Maker's  goodness  to  him. 

And  I  do  not  know  whether  occupations  of  this  kind  be  not 
a  spring  of  purer  and  nobler  delight  (certainly  instances  of  a 
more  disinterested  virtue)  than  arises  from  what  are  called 
friendships  of  sentiment. 

Between  two  persons  of  liberal  education,  like  opinions, 
and  common  feelings,  oftentimes  subsists  a  vanity  of  sentiment, 
which  disposes  each  to  look  upon  the  other  as  the  only  being 
in  the  universe  worthy  of  friendship,  or  capable  of  understand- 
ing it — themselves  they  consider  as  the  solitary  receptacles 
of  all  that  is  delicate  in  feeling  or  stable  in  attachment:  when 
the  odds  are,  that  under  every  green  hill,  and  in  every  crowded 
street,  people  of  equal  worth  are  to  be  found,  who  do  more 
good  in  their  generation,  and  make  less  noise  in  the  doing  of 
it. 

It  was  in  consequence  of  these  benevolent  propensities  I 
have  been  describing,  that  Allan  oftentimes  discovered  con- 
siderable inclinations  in  favour  of  my  way  of  life,  which  I  have 
before  mentioned  as  being  that  of  a  surgeon.  He  would  fre- 
quently attend  me  on  my  visits  to  patients ;  and  I  began  to 
think  that  he  had  serious  intentions  of  making  my  profession 
his  study. 

He  was  present  with  me  at  a  scene — a  deathbed  scene — I 
shudder  when  I  do  but  think  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

I  was  sent  for  the  other  morning  to  the  assistance  of  a  gen- 
tleman who  had  been  wounded  in  a  duel,  and  his  wounds  by 
unskilful  treatment  had  been  brought  to  a  dangerous  crisis. 

'The  uncomnionness  of  the  name,  which  was  ^[atravis,  sug- 
gested to  me  that  this  might  possibly  be  no  other  than  Allan's 
old  enemy.  Under  this  apprehension,  I  did  what  I  could  to 
dissuade  Allan  from  accompanying  me — but  he  seemed  bent 
upon  going,  and  even  pleased  himself  with  the  notion,  that  it 
might  lie  within  his  ability  to  do  the  unhappy  man  some  scr- 
r'  e.     So  he  went  with  me. 


336  ROSAMUND    GRAY. 

When  we  came  to  the  house,  which  was  in  Sdho-square,  we 
discovered  that  it  was  indeed  the  man,  the  identical  Matravis, 
who  had  done  all  that  mischief  in  times  past — but  not  in  a 
condition  to  excite  any  other  sensation  than  pity  in  a  heart 
more  hard  than  Allan's. 

Intense  pain  had  brought  on  a  delirium — we  perceived  this 
on  first  entering  the  room — for  the  wretched  man  was  raving  to 
himself — talking  idly  in  mad  unconnected  sentences,  that  yet 
seemed,  at  times,  to  have  reference  to  past  facts. 

One  while  he  told  us  his  dream.  "  He  had  lost  his  way  on 
a  great  heath,  to  which  there  seemed  no  end — it  was  cold, 
cold,  cold — and  dark,  very  dark — an  old  woman  in  leading- 
straigs,  blind,  was  groping  about  for  a  guide  ;"  and  then  he 
frightened  me,  for  he  seemed  disposed  to  be  jocular,  and  sang 
a  song  about  "  an  old  woman  clothed  in  gray,"  and  said  "  he 
did  not  believe  in  a  devil." 

Presently  he  bid  us  "  not  tell  Allan  Clare."  Allan  was 
hanging  over  him  at  that  very  moment,  sobbing.  I  could  not 
resist  the  impulse,  but  cried  out,  "  This  is  Allan  Clare — Allan 
Clare  is  come  to  see  you,  my  dear  sir."  The  wretched  man 
did  not  hear  me,  I  believe,  for  he  turned  his  head  away,  and 
began  talking  of  charnel-houses  and  dead  men,  "  whether  they 
knew  anything  that  passed  in  their  coffins." 

Matravis  died  that  night. 


RECOLLECTIONS 


CHRIST'S    HOSPITAL. 


To  comfort  the  desponding  parent  with  the  thought  that, 
without  diminishing  the  stock  which  is  imperiously  demanded 
to  furnish  the  more  pressing  and  homely  wants  of  our  nature, 
he  has  disposed  of  one  or  more  perhaps  out  of  a  numerous  off- 
spring, under  the  shelter  of  a  care  scarce  less  tender  than  the 
paternal,  where  not  only  their  bodily  cravings  shall  be  sup- 
plied, but  that  mental  pabulum  is  also  dispensed,  which  He  hath 
declared  to  be  no  less  necessary  to  our  sustenance  who  said, 
that  "  not  by  bread  alone  man  can  live  ;"  for  this  Christ's 
Hospital  unfolds  her  bounty.  Here  neither,  on  the  one  hand, 
are  the  youth  lifted  up  above  their  family,  which  we  must  sup- 
pose liberal,  though  reduced  ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  are  they 
liable  to  be  depressed  below  its  level  by  the  mean  habits  and 
sentiments  which  a  common  charity-school  generates.  It  is, 
in  a  word,  an  institution  to  keep  those  who  have  yet  held  up 
their  heads  in  the  world  from  sinking;  to  keep  alive  the  spirit 
of  a  decent  household,  when  poverty  was  in  danger  of  crushing 
it;  to  assist  those  who  are  the  most  willing,  but  not  always 
the  most  able,  to  assist  themselves  ;  to  separate  a  child  from 
bis  family  for  a  season,  in  order  to  render  him  back  hereafter 
with  feelings  and  habits  more  congenial  to  it  than  he  could 
have  attained  by  remaining  at  home  in  the  bosom  of  it.  It  is 
a  preserving  and  renovating  principle,  an  antidote  for  the  res 
angusia  domi,  when  it  presses,  as  it  always  does,  most  heavily 
upon  the  most  ingenuous  natures. 

This  is  Christ's  Hospital;  and  whether  its  character  would 
be  improved  by  confining  its  advantages  to  the  very  lowest  of 
the  people,  let  those  judge  who  have  witnessed  the  looks,  the 
gestures,  the  behaviour,  the  manner  of  their  play  with  one  an- 
other, their  deportment  towards  strangers,  the  whole  aspect 
and  physiognomy  of  that  vast  assemblage  of  boys  on  the  Lon- 
29  P 


338  RECOLLECTIONS    OF 

don  foundation,  who  freshen  and  make  alive  again  with  their 
sports  the  else  mouldering  cloisters  of  the  old  Gray  Friars — 
which  strangers  who  have  never  witnessed,  if  they  pass 
through  Newgate-street,  or  by  Smithfield,  would  do  well  to  go 
a  little  out  of  their  way  to  see. 

For  the  Christ's  Hospital  boy  feels  that  he  is  no  charity-boy  ; 
he  feels  it  in  the  antiquity  and  regality  of  the  foundation  to 
which  he  belongs ;  in  the  usage  which  he  meets  with  at 
school,  and  the  treatment  he  is  accustomed  to  out  of  its  bounds ; 
in  the  respect,  and  even  kindness,  which  his  well-known  garb 
never  fails  to  procure  him  in  the  streets  of  the  metropolis  ;  he 
feels  it  in  his  education,  in  that  measure  of  classical  attain- 
ments, which  every  individual  at  that  school,  though  not  des- 
tined to  a  learned  profession,  has  it  in  his  power  to  procure  ;  at- 
tainments, which  it  would  be  worse  than  folly  to  put  it  in  the 
reach  of  the  labouring  classes  to  acquire  :  he  feels  it  in  the 
numberless  comforts,  and  even  magnificences,  which  surround- 
ed him  ;  in  his  old  and  awful  cloisters,  with  their  traditions  ; 
in  his  spacious  schoolrooms,  and  in  the  well-ordered,  airy, 
and  lofty  rooms  where  he  sleeps  ;  in  his  stately  dining-hall, 
hung  round  with  pictures,  by  Verrio,  Lely,  and  others,  one 
of  them  surpassing  in  size  and  grandeur  almost  any  other  in 
the  kingdom  ;*  above  all,  in  the  very  extent  and  magnitude  of 
the  body  to  which  he  belongs,  and  the  consequent  spirit,  the 
intelligence,  and  public  conscience,  which  is  the  result  of  so 
many  various  yet  wonderful  combining  members.  Compared 
with  this  last-named  advantage,  what  is  the  stock  of  informa- 
tion, (I  do  not  here  speak  of  book-learning,  but  of  that  knowl- 
edge which  boy  receives  from  boy,)  the  mass  of  collected 
opinions,  the  intelligence  in  common,  among  the  few  and  nar- 
row members  of  an  ordinary  boarding-school. 

The  Christ's  Hospital  or  blue-coat  boy  has  a  distinctive 
character  of  his  own,  as  far  removed  from  the  abject  qualities 
of  a  common  charity-boy  as  it  is  from  the  disgusting  forward- 
ness of  a  lad  brought  up  at  some  other  of  the  public  schools. 
There  is  pride  in  it,  accumulated  from  the  circumstances 
which  I  have  described  as  differencing  him  from  the  former  ; 
and  there  is  a  restraining  modesty,  from  a  sense  of  obligation 
and  dependance,  which  must  ever  keep  his  deportment  from 
assimilating  to  that  of  the  latter.  His  very  garb,  as  it  is  an- 
tique and  venerable,  feeds  his  self-respect ;  as  it  is  a  badge  of 
dependance,  it  restrains  the  natural  petulance  of  that  age  from 
breaking  out  into  overt  acts  of  insolence.     This  produces  si- 

*  By  Verrio,  representing  James  the  Second  on  his  throne,  surrounded  by 
his  courtiers,  (all  curious  portraits,)  receiving  the  mathematical  pupils  at  their 
annual  presentation,  a  custom  still  kept  up  on  JNewyear's  day  at  court. 


CHRIST  I    HOSPITAL.  339 

lence  and  a  reserve  before  strangers,  yet  not  that  cowardly 
shyness  which  boys  mewed  np  at  home  will  feel ;  lie  will 
speak,  np  when  spoken  to,  but  the  Stranger  must  begin  the 
conversation  with  him.  Within  bis  bounds  he  is  all  fire  and 
play  ;  but  iu  the  streets  he  steals  along  with  all  the  sclf-con- 
ceutration  of  a  young  monk.  He  is  never  known  to  mix  with 
other  boys,  they  are  a  soit  of  laity  to  him.  All  this  proceeds, 
1  have  no  doubt,  from  (he  continual  consciousness  which  he 
carries  about  him  of  the  difference  of  his  dress  from  that  of  the 
rest  of  die  world  ;  with  a  modest  jealousy  over  himself,  lest,  by 
overhastily  mixing  with  common  and  secular  playfellows,  he 
should  commit  the  dignity  of  his  cloth.  Nor  let  any  one  laugh 
at.  this;  for  considering  the  propensity  of  the  multitude,  and 
especially  of  the  small  multitude,  to  ridicule  anything  unusual 
in  dress — above  all,  where  such  peculiarity  may  be  construed 
by  malice  into  a  mark  of  disparagement — this  reserve  will 
appear  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  wise  instinct  in  the  blue- 
coat  boy.  That  it  is  neither  pride  nor  rusticity,  at  least  that 
it  has  none  of  the  offensive  qualities  of  either,  a  stranger  may 
soon  satisfy  himself  by  putting  a  question  to  any  of  these 
boys  :  he  may  be  sure  of  an  answer  couched  in  terms  of  plain 
civility,  neither  loquacious  nor  embarrassed.  Let  him  put  the 
same  question  to  a  parish-boy,  or  to  one  of  the  trencher-caps 

in  the cloisters,  and  the  impudent  reply  of  the  one  shall 

not  fail  to  exasperate  any  more  than  the  certain  servility,  and 
mercenary  eye  to  reward,  which  he  will  meet  with  in  the 
other,  can  fail  to  depress  and  sadden  him. 

The  Christ's  Hospital  boy  is  a  religious  character.  His 
school  is  eminently  a  religious  foundation  ;  it  has  its  peculiar 
prayers,  its  services  at  set  times,  its  graces,  hymns,  and  an- 
thems, following  each  other  in  an  almost  monastic  closeness  of 
succession.  This  religious  character  in  him  is  not  always 
UHtinged  with  superstition.  That  is  not  wonderful,  when  we 
consider  the  thousand  tales  and  traditions  which  must  circu- 
late, with  undisturbed  credulity,  among  so  many  boys,  that 
have  so  few  checks  to  their  belief  from  any  intercourse  with 
the  world  at  large  ;  upon  whom  their  equals  in  age  must  work 
so  much,  their  elders  so  little.  With  this  leaning  towards  an 
over-belief  in  matters  of  religion,  which  will  soon  correct  it- 
self when  he  comes  out  into  society,  may  be  classed  a  turn 
for  romance  above  most  other  boys.  This  is  to  be  traced  in 
the  same  manner  to  their  excess  of  society  with  each  other,  and 
defect  of  mingling  with  the  world.  Hence  the  peculiar  avid- 
ity with  which  such  books  as  the  Arabian  Nights  Kntertain- 
ments,  and  others  of  a  still  wilder  cast,  are,  or  at  least  were 
in  my  time,  sought  for  by  the  boys,     1  remember  when  some 

P2 


340  RECOLLECTIONS    OF 

half  dozen  of  them  set  off  from  school,  without  map,  card,  or 
compass,  on  a  serious  expedition  to  find  out  Philip  QuarlVs 
Island. 

The  Christ's  Hospital  boy's  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  pe- 
culiarly tender  and  apprehensive.  It  is  even  apt  to  run  out 
into  ceremonial  observances,  and  to  impose  a  yoke  upon  itself 
beyond  the  strict  obligations  of  the  moral  law.  Those  who 
were  contemporaries  with  me  at  that  school  thirty  years  ago, 
will  remember  with  what  more  than  Judaic  rigour  the  eating 
of  the  fat  of  certain  boiled  meats*  was  interdicted.  A  boy 
would  have  blushed  as  at  the  exposure  of  some  heinous  im- 
morality, to  have  been  detected  eating  that  forbidden  portion 
of  his  allowance  of  animal  food,  the  whole  of  which,  while 
he  was  in  health,  was  little  more  than  sufficient  to  allay  his 
hunger.  The  same,  or  even  greater,  refinement  was  shown 
in  the  rejection  of  certain  kinds  of  sweet-cake.  What  gave 
rise  to  these  supererogatory  penances,  these  self-denying  or- 
dinances, I  could  never  learn  ;|  they  certainly  argue  no  de- 
fect of  the  conscientious  principle.  A  little  excess  in  that  ar- 
ticle is  not  undesirable  in  yonth,  to  make  allowance  for  the 
inevitable  waste  which  comes  in  maturer  years.  But  in  the 
less  ambiguous  line  of  duty,  in  those  directions  of  the  moral 
feelings  which  cannot  be  mistaken  or  depreciated,  I  will  re- 
late what  took  place  in  the  year  1785,  when  Mr.  Perry,  the 
steward,  died.  I  must  be  pardoned  for  taking  my  instances 
from  my  own  times.  Indeed,  the  vividness  of  my  recollec- 
tions, while  I  am  upon  this  subject,  almost  bring  back  those 
times  ;  they  are  present  to  me  still.  But  I  believe  that  in 
the  years  which  have  elapsed  since  the  period  which  I  speak 
of,  the  character  of  the  Christ's  Hospital  boy  is  very  little 
changed.  Their  situation,  in  point  of  many  comforts,  is  im- 
proved ;  but  that  which  I  ventured  before  to  term  the  public 
conscience,  of  the  school,  the  pervading  moral  sense,  of  which 
every  mind  partakes,  and  to  which  so  many  individual  minds 
contribute,  remains,  I  believe,  pretty  much  the  same  as  when 
I  left  it.  I  have  seen  within  this  twelvemonth  almost  the 
change  which  has  been  produced  upon  a  boy  of  eight  or  nine 
years  of  age,  upon  being  admitted  into  that  school ;  how,  from 
a  pert  young  coxcomb,  who  thought  tliat  all  knowledge  was  com- 
prehended within  his  shallow  brains,  because  a  smattering  of 

*  Under  the  denomination  of  gags. 

t  I  am  told  that  the  late  steward,  [Mr.  Hathaway,]  who  evinced  on  many 
occasions  a  mbst  praiseworthy  anxiety  to  promote  the  comfort  of  the  boys, 
had  occasion  lor  all  his  address  arid  perseverance  to  eradicate  the  first  of  these 
unfortunate  prejudices,  m  winch  lie  ;il  length  happily  succeeded,  and  thereby 
re.slbred  to  one  half  of  the  animal  nutrition  of  the  school  those  honours  which 
painful  superstition  and  blind  zeal  had  so  lung  conspired  to  withhold  from  it. 


CHRIST  S    HOSPITAL.  311 

two  or  three  languages  and  one  or  two  sciences  were  stuffed 
into  him  by  injudicious  treatment  at  home,  by  a  mixture  with 
the  wholesome  society  of  so  many  schoolfellows,  in  less  time 
than  I  have  spok<  n  of,  lie  has  sunk  to  his  own  level,  and  is 
contented  to  be  carried  on  in  the  quiet  orb  of  modest  self- 
knowledge  in  which  the  common  mass  of  that  unpreSuinptu-* 
ous  assemblage  of  boys  seem  to  move  :  from  being  a  little  un- 
feeling mortal,  he  has  got  to  feel  and  reflect.  Nor  would  it  be  a 
difficult  matter  to  show  how,  at  a  school  like  this,  where  the 
boy  is  neither  entirely  separated  from  home  nor  yet  exclu- 
sively under  its  influence^tfie  best  feelings,  the  filial,  for  in- 
stance, are  brought  to  a  maturity  which  they  could  not  have 
attained  under  a  completely  domestic  education  ;  how  the  re- 
lation of  parent  is  rendered  less  tender  by  unremitted  associ- 
ation, and  the  very  awfulness  of  age  is  best  apprehended  by 
some  sojourning  amid  the  comparative  levity  of  youth  ;  how 
absence,  not  drawn  out  by  too  great  extension  into  alienation 
or  forgetfulness,  puts  an  edge  upon  the  relish  of  occasional 
intercourse,  and  the  boy  is  made  the  better  child  by  that  which 
keeps  the  force  of  that  relation  from  being  felt  as  perpet- 
ually pressing  on  him  ;  how  the  substituted  paternity,  into  the 
care  of  which  he  is  adopted,  while  in  everything  substantial 
it  makes  up  for  the  natural,  in  the  necessary  omission  of  in- 
dividual fondnesses  and  partialities,  directs  the  mind  only  the 
more  strongly  to  appreciate  that  natural  and  first  tie,  in  which 
such  weaknesses  are  the  bond  of  strength,  and  the  appetite 
which  craves  after  them  betrays  no  perverse  palate.  But 
these  speculations  rather  belong  to  the  question  of  the  com- 
parative advantages  of  a  public  over  a  private  education  in 
general.  I  must  get  back  to  my  favourite  school  ;  and  to  that 
which  took  place  when  our  old  and  good  steward  died. 

And  I  will  say,  that  when  I  think  of  the  frequent  instances 
which  I  have  met  with  in  children  of  a  hard-heartedness,  a 
callousness,  and  insensibility  to  the  loss  of  relations,  even  of 
those  who  have  begot  and  nourished  them,  I  cannot  but  con- 
sider it  as  a  proof  of  something  in  the  peculiar  conformation 
of  that  school,  favourable  to  the  expansion  of  the  best  feelings 
of  our  nature,  that,  at  the  period  which  I  am  noticing,  out  of 
five  hundred  boys,  there  was  not  a  dry  eye  to  be  found  among 
them,  nor  a  heart  that  did  not  beat  with  genuine  emotion. 
Every  impulse  to  play,  until  the  funeral-day  was  past,  seemed 
suspended  throughout  the  school  ;  and  the  boys,  lately  so 
mirthful  and  sprightly,  were  seen  pacing  their  cloisters  alone, 
or  in  sail  groups  standing  about,  lew  of  them  without  some 
token,  such  as  their  slender  means  could  provide.  8  black  rib- 
and, or  something  to  denote  respect  and  a  sense  of  their  loss. 
29* 


842  RECOLLECTIONS    OF 

The  time  itself  was  a  time  of  anarchy,  a  time  in  which  all 
authority  (out  of  school  hours)  was  abandoned.  The  ordi- 
nary restraints  were  for  those  days  superseded  ;  and  the  gates, 
which  at  other  times  kept  us  in,  were  left  without  watchers. 
Yet,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  graceless  boys  at  most, 
who  took  advantage  of  that  suspension  of  authorities  to  skulk 
out,  as  it  was  called,  the  whole  of  the  body  of  that  great  school 
kept  rigorously  within  their  bonds,  by  a  voluntary  self-imprison- 
ment ;  and  they  who  broke  bounds,  though  they  escaped  pun- 
ishment from  any  master,  fell  into  a  general  disrepute  among  us, 
and,  for  that  which  at  any  other  time  would  have  been  ap- 
plauded and  admired  as  a  mark  of  spirit,  were  consigned  to 
infamy  and  reprobation  :  so  much  natural  government  have 
gratitude  and  the  principles  of  reverence  and  love,  and  so 
much  did  a  respect  to  their  dead  friend  prevail  with  these 
Christ's  Hospital  boys  above  any  fear  which  his  presence 
among  them  when  living  could  ever  produce.  And  if  the  im- 
pressions which  were  made  on  my  mind  so  long  ago  are  to  be 
trusted,  very  richly  did  their  steward  deserve  this  tribute.  It 
is  a  pleasure  to  me  even  now  to  call  to  mind  his  portly  form, 
the  regal  awe  which  he  always  contrived  to  inspire,  in  spite  of 
a  tenderness  and  even  weakness  of  nature  that  would  have  en- 
feebled the  reins  of  discipline  in  any  other  master ;  a  yearn- 
ing of  tenderness  towards  those  under  his  protection,  which 
could  make  five  hundred  boys  at  once  feel  towards  him  each 
as  to  their  individual  father.  He  had  faults,  with  which  we 
had  nothing  to  do ;  but,  with  all  his  faults,  indeed  Mr.  Perry 
was  a  most  extraordinary  creature.  Contemporary  with  him, 
and  still  living,  though  lie  has  long  since  resigned  his  occupa- 
tion, will  it  be  impertinent  to  mention  the  name  of  our  excel- 
lent upper  grammar-master,  the  Rev.  James  Boyer  1  He  was 
a  disciplinarian,  indeed,  of  a  different  stamp  from  him  whom 
I  have  just  described  ;  but,  now  the  terrors  of  the  rod,  and  of 
a  temper  a  little  too  hasty  to  leave  the  more  nervous  of  us  quite 
at  our  ease  to  do  justice  to  his  merits  in  those  days,  are  long 
since  over,  ungrateful  were  we  if  we  should  refuse  our  testi- 
mony to  that  unwearied  assiduity  with  which  he  attended  to 
(lie  particular  improvement,  of  each  of  us.  Had  we  been  the 
offspring  of  the.  first  gentry  in  the  land,  he  could  not  have  been 
instigated  by  the  strongest  views  of  recompense  and  reward 
to  make  himself  a  greater  slave  to  the  most  laborious  <>( 
all  occupations,  than  he  did  for  us  sons  of  charity,  from  whom 
or  from  our  parents  he  could  expect  nothing,  lie  lias  had  his 
reward  in  the  satisfaction  of  having  discharged  bis  duty,  in  the 
pleasurable  consciousness  of  having  advanced  the  respecta- 
bility of  that  institution  to  which,  both  man  and  boy,  he  was 


Christ's  hospital.  313 

attached  ;  in  the  honours  to  which  so  many  of  his  pupils  have 
successfully  aspired  at  both  our  universities.;  and  in  the  staff 
with  which  the  governors  of  the  Hospital,  at  the  close  of  his 
hard  labours,  with  the  highest  expressions  of  the  obligations 

the  school  lay  under  to  him,  unanimously  voted  to  present 
him. 

1  have  often  considered  it  among  the  felicities  of  the  consti- 
tution of  this  school,  that  the  offices  of  steward  and  school- 
master are  kept  distinct;  the  strict  business  of  education 
alone  devolving  upon  the  latter,  while  the  former  has  the 
charge  of  all  things  out  of  school,  the  control  of  the  provis- 
ions, the  regulation  of  meals,  of  dress,  of  play,  and  the  ordi- 
nary intercourse  of  the  boys.  By  this  division  of  manage- 
ment, a  superior  respectability  must  attach  to  the  teacher 
while  his  office  is  unmixed  with  any  of  these  lower  concerns. 
A  still  greater  advantage  over  the  construction  of  common 
boarding-schools  is  to  be  found  in  the  settled  salaries  of  the 
masters,  rendering  them  totally  free  of  obligation  to  any  indi- 
vidual pupil  or  his  parents.  This  never  fails  to  have  its  ef- 
fect at  schools  where  each  boy  can  reckon  up  to  a  hair  what 
profit  the  master  derives  from  him,  where  he  views  him  every 
day  in  the  light  of  a  caterer,  a  provider  for  the  family,  who  is 
to  get  so  much  by  him  in  each  of  his  meals.  Boys  will  see 
and  consider  these  things  ;  and  how  much  must  the  sacred 
character  of  preceptor  suffer  in  their  minds  by  these  degrading 
associations !  The  very  bill  which  the  pupil  carries  home 
with  him  at  Christinas,  eked  out,  perhaps,  with  elaborate 
though  necessary  minuteness,  instructs  him  that  his  teachers 
have  other  ends  than  the  mere  love  to  learning  in  the  lessons 
which  they  give  him  ;  and  though  they  put  into  his  hands  the 
fine  sayings  of  Seneca  or  Epictetus,  yet  they  themselves  are 
none  of  those  disinterested  pedagogues  to  teach  philosophy 
gratis.  The  master,  too,  is  sensible  that  he  is  seen  in  this 
light ;  and  how  much  this  must  lessen  that  affectionate  regard 
to  the  learners  which  alone  can  sweeten  the  bitter  labour  of 
instruction,  and  convert  the  whole  business  into  unwelcome 
and  uninteresting  task-work,  many  preceptors  that  I  have  con- 
versed with  on  the  subject  are  ready,  with  a  sad  heart,  to  ac- 
knowledge. From  this  inconvenience  the  settled  salaries  of 
the  masters  of  this  school  in  great  measure  exempt  them  ; 
while  the  happy  custom  of  choosing  masters  (indeed,  every 
officer  of  the  establishment)  from  those  who  have  received 
their  education  there,  gives  them  an  interest  in  advancing  the 
character  of  the  school,  and  binds  them  to  observe  a  tender- 
ness and  a  respect  to  the  children,  in  which  a  stranger,  feeling 


344  ItECOLLECTIONS    OF 

that  independence  which  I  have  spoken  of,  might  well  be  ex- 
pected to  fail, 

In  affectionate  recollections  of  the  place  where  he  was 
bred  up,  in  hearty  recognitions  of  old  schoolfellows  met  with 
again  after  the  lapse  of  years,  or  in  foreign  countries,  the 
Christ's  Hospital  boy  yields  to  none  ;  I  might  almost  say, 
he  goes  beyond  most  other  boys.  The  very  compass  and 
magnitude  of  the  school,  its  thousand  bearings,  the  space  it 
takes  up  in  the  imagination  beyond  the  ordinary  schools,  im- 
presses a  remembrance,  accompanied  with  an  elevation  of 
mind, that  attends  him  through  life.  It  is  too  big,  too  affecting 
an  object  to  pass  away  quickly  from  his  mind.  The  Christ's 
Hospital  boy's  friends  at  school  are  commonly  his  intimates 
through  life.  For  me,  I  do  not  know  whether  a  constitutional 
imbecility  does  not  incline  me  too  obstinately  to  cling  to  the 
remembrances  of  childhood ;  in  an  inverted  ratio  to  the  usual 
sentiments  of  mankind,  nothing  that  I  have  been  engaged  in 
since  seems  of  any  value  or  importance,  compared  to  the  col- 
ours which  imagination  gave  to  everything  then.  I  belong  to 
no  body  corporate  such  as  I  then  made  a  part  of.  And  here, 
before  I  close,  taking  leave  of  the  general  reader,  and  addres- 
sing myself  solely  to  my  old  schoolfellows,  that  were  contem- 
poraries with  me  from  the  year  1782  to  1789,  let  me  have 
leave  to  remember  some  of  those  circumstances  of  our  school, 
which  they  will  not  be  unwilling  to  have  brought  back  to 
their  minds. 

And  first,  let  us  remember,  as  first  in  importance  in  our 
childish  eyes,  the  young  men  (as  they  almost  were)  who,  un- 
der the  denomination  of  Grecians,  were  waiting  the  expiration 
of  the  period  when  they  should  be  sent,  at  the  charges  of  the 
Hospital,  to  one  or  other  of  our  universities,  but  more  frequently 
to  Cambridge.  These  youth,  from  their  superior  acquirements, 
their  superior  age  and  stature,  and  the  fewness  of  their  num- 
bers, (for  seldom  above  two  or  three  at  a  time  were  inaugurated 
into  that  high  order,)  drew  the  eyes  of  all,  and  especially  of  the 
younger  boys,  into  a  reverent  observance  and  admiration. 
How  tall  they  used  to  seem  to  us  !  how  stately  would  they  pace 
along  the  cloisters  !  while  the  play  of  the  lesser  boys  was 
absolutely  suspended,  or  its  boisterousness  at  least  allayed,  at 
their  presence  !  Not  that  they  ever  beat  or  struck  the  boys — 
that  would  have  been  to  have  demeaned  themselves — the  dig- 
nity of  their  persons  alone  ensured  them  all  respect.  The  task 
of  blows,  of  corporeal  chastisement,  they  loft  to  the  common 
monitors,  or  heads  of  wards,  who,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  our 
time,  had  rather  too  much  license  allowed  them  to  oppress 
and  misuse  their  inferiors  ;  and  the  interference  of  the  Gre- 


CHRIST  S    HOSPITAL.  345 

cian,  who  may  be  considered  as  the  spiritual  power,  u  as 
not  unfrequently  called  for  to  mitigate  by  its  mediation  the 
heavy,  unrelenting  arm  of  this  temporal  power,  or  monitor. 
In  line,  the  Grecians  were  the  solemn  muftis  of  the  school. 
Eras  were  computed    from    their  time  ;   it    used  to  be    said, 

such  or  such  a  thing  was   done    when  .S or  T — - —  was 

Grecian; 

As  I  ventured  to  call  the  Grecians  the  muftis  of  the  school, 
the  king's  boys,*  as  their  character  then  was,  may  well  pass 
lor  the  jan  zaries.  They  were  the  terror  of  all  the  other  bovs; 
bred  up  under  that  hardy  sailor,  as  well  as  excellent  mathe- 
matician, and  co-navigator  with  Captain  Cook,  William  Wales* 
All  his  systems  were  adapted  to  lit  them  for  the  rough  element 
which  they  were  destined  to  encounter.  Frequent  and  severe 
punishments,  which  were  expected  to  be  borne  with  more  than 
Spartan  fortitude,  came  to  be  considered  less  as  mllictions  of 
disgrace  than  as  trials  of  obstinate  endurance.  To  make  his 
boys  hardy,  and  give  them  early  sailor  habits,  seemed  to  be  his 
only  aim  :  to  this  everything  was  subordinate.  Moral  obli- 
quities, indeed,  were  sure  of  receiving  their  full  recompense, 
for  no  occasion  of  laying  on  the  lash  was  ever  let  slip  ;  but 
the  effects  expected  to  be  produced  from  it  were  something 
verv  different  from  contrition  or  mortification.  There  was  in 
William  Wales  a  perpetual  fund  of  humour,  a  constant  glee  about 
him,  which,  heightened  by  an  inveterate  provincialism  of  North- 
country  dialect,  absolutely  took  away  the  sting  from  his  severi- 
ties. His  punishments  were  a  game  at  patience,  in  which  the 
master  was  not  always  worst  contented  when  he  found  himself 
at  times  overcome  by  his  pupil.  What  success  this  discipline 
had,  or  how  the  effects  of  it  operated  upon  the  after-lives  of 
these  king's  boys,  I  cannot  say  ;  but  I  am  sure  that,  for  the 
time,  they  were  absolute  nuisances  to  the  rest  of  the  school. 
Hardv,  brutal,  and  often  wicked,  they  were  the  most  graceless 
lump  in  the  whole  mass  ;  older  and  bigger  than  the  other  boys, 
(for  by  the  system  of  their  education  they  were  kept  longer  at 
school  by  two  or  three  years  than  any  of  the  rest,  except  the 
Grecians,)  they  were  a  constant  terror  to  the  younger  part  of 
the  school  ;  and  some  who  may  read  this,  I  doubt  not,  will 
remember  the  consternation  into  which  the  juvenile  fry  of  us 
were  thrown,  when  the  cry  was  raised  in  the  cloisters,  that 
the  First  Order  was  coming— for  so  they  termed  the  first  form 
or  class  of  those  bovs.  JSiill  these  sea-boys  answered  some 
good  purposes  in  the  school.  They  were  the  military  class 
among  the  boys,  foremost  in  athletic   exercises,  who  extended 

*  The  mathematical  pupils,  bred  up  to  the  sea,  on  the  foundation  of  Charlca 
cond 


346  RECOLLECTIONS    OF 

the  fame  of  the  prowess  of  the  school  far  and  near  ;  and  the 
apprentices  in  the  vicinage,  and  sometimes  the  hutchers'  boys 
in  the  neighbouring  market,  had  sad  occasion  to  attest  their 
valour. 

The  time  would  fail  me  if  I  were  to  attempt  to  enumerate 
all  those  circumstances,  some  pleasant,  some  attended  with 
some  pain,  which,  seen  through  the  mist  of  distance,  come 
sweetly  softened  to  the  memory.  But  I  must  crave  leave  to 
remember  our  transcending  superiority  in  those  invigorating 
sports,  leap-frog  and  basting  the  bear ;  our  delightful  excur- 
sions in  the  summer  holydays  to  the  New  River,  near  Newing- 
ton,  where,  like  otters,  we  would  live  the  long  day  in  the 
water,  never  caring  for  dressing  ourselves  when  we  had  once 
stripped  ;  our  savoury  meals  afterward,  when  we  came  home 
almost  famished,  with  staying  out  all  day  without  our  dinners  ; 
our  visits,  at  other  times,  to  the  Tower,  where,  by  ancient  priv- 
ilege, we  had  free  access  to  all  the  curiosities ;  our  solemn 
processions  through  the  city  at  Easter,  with  the  lord  mayor's 
largess  of  buns,  wine,  and  a  shilling,  with  the  festive  questions 
and  civic  pleasantries  of  the  dispensing  aldermen,  which  were 
more  to  us  than  all  the  rest  of  the  banquet  ;  our  stately  sup- 
pings  in  public,  where  the  well-lighted  hall,  and  the  confluence 
of  well-dressed  company  who  came  to  see  us,  made  the  whole 
look  more  like  a  concert  or  assembly,  than  a  scene  of  a  plain 
bread  and  cheese  collation  ;  the  annual  orations  upon  St. 
Matthew's  day,  in  which  the  senior  scholar,  before  he  had  done, 
seldom  failed  to  reckon  up,  among  those  who  had  done  honour 
to  our  school  by  being  educated  in  it,  the  names  of  those  ac- 
complished critics  and  Greek  scholars,  Joshua  Barnes  and 
Jeremiah  Markland  (I  marvel  they  left  out  Camden  while  they 
Avere  about  it.)  Let  me  have  leave  to  remember  our  hymns 
and  anthems,  and  well-toned  organ  ;  the  doleful  tune  of  the 
burial  anthem  chanted  in  the  solemn  cloisters,  upon  the  seldom- 
occurring  funeral  of  some  schoolfellow,  the  festivities  ;it 
Christmas,  when  the  richest  of  us  would  club  our  stock  to 
have  a  gaudy  day,  sitting  round  the  fire,  replenished  to  (he 
height  with  logs,  and  the  penniless,  and  he  that  could  contrib- 
ute nothing,  partook  in  all  the  mirth,  and  in  some  of  the  sub- 
stantialities of  the  feasting  ;  the  carol  sung  by  night  at  that 
time  of  the  year,  which,  when  a  young  boy,  1  have  so  often 
lain  awake  to  hear  from  seven  (the  hour  of  going  to  bed)  till 
ten,  when  it  was  sung  by  the  older  boys  and  monitors,  and 
have  listened  to  it  in  their  rude  chanting,  till  I  have  been  trans- 
ported in  fancy  to  the  fields  of  IJetlilehem,  and  the  sunt; 
which  was  sung  at  that  season  by  angels'  voices  to  the  shep- 
herds. 


CHRIST  S    HOSPITAL.  .'J  17 

Nor  would  I  willingly  forget  any  of  those  things  which  ad- 
ministered to  our  vanity.  The  hem-stitched  bands  and  town- 
made  slnrts,  which  some  of  tie  most  fashionable  among  us  wore ; 
the  lown*girdles,  with  buckles  of  silver,  or  shining  none  ;  the 

badges  of  the  sea-boys  ;  the  cots,  or  superior  shoestrings  of 
the  monitors  ;  the  medals  of  the  markers,  (those  who  were  ap- 
pointed to  hoar  the  Bible  read  in  the  wards  on  Sunday  morninir 
and  evening,)  which  bore  on  their  obverse  in  silver,  as  certain 
parts  of  our  garments  carried  in  meaner  metal,  the  counte- 
nance of  our  founder,  that  godly  and  royal  child,  King  Edward 
the  Sixth,  the  ilower  of  the  Tudor  name — the  young  flower 
that  was  untimely  cropped  as  it  began  to  till  our  land  with  its 
early  odours — the  boy-patron  of  boys — the  serious  and  holy 
child  who  walked  with  Cranmer  and  Ridley — fit  associate,  in 
those  tender  years,  for  the  bishops  and  future  martyrs  of  our 
church,  to  receive  or  (as  occasion  sometimes  proved)  to  give 
instruction. 

"  But,  ah  !   what  means  the  silent  tear? 
Why,  e'en  mid  joy,  my  bosom  heave? 
Ye  long-lost  scenes,  enchantments  dear  ! 
Lo  !  now  I  linger  o'er  your  grave. 

"  Fly,  then,  ye  hours  of  rosy  hue, 

And  bear  away  the  bloom  of  years  ! 
And  quick  succeed,  ye  sickly  crew 

Of  doubts  and  sorrows,  pains  and  fears  ! 

"  Still  will  I  ponder  Fate's  unalter'd  plan, 
Nor,  tracing  back  the  child,  forget  that  I  am  man."* 

*  Lines  meditated  in  the  cloisters  of  Christ's  Hospital,  in  the  Poetics,  ol 
Mr.  George  Dyer. 


ESSAYS. 


ON  THE  TRAGEDIES  OF  SIIAKSPEARK, 

CONSIDERED   WITH    REFERENCE    TO    THEIR    FITNESS    FOR    ST 
REPRESENTATION, 

Taking  a  turn  the  other  day  in  the  abbey,  1  was  struck 
with  the  affected  attitude  of  a  figure,  which  I  do  not  r< ■mem- 
ber to  have  seen  before,  and  which,  upon  examination,  proved 
to  be  a  whole  length  of  the  celebrated  Mr.  Garrick.  Though 
I  would  not  go  so  far  with  some  good  catholics  abroad  as  to 
shut  players  altogether  out  of  consecrated  ground,  yet  I  own 
I  was  not  a  little  scandalized  at  the  introduction  of  theatrical 
airs  and  gestures  into  a  place  set  apart  to  remind  us  of  tin; 
saddest  realities.  Going  nearer,  I  found  inscribed  under  this 
harlequin  figure  the  following  lines  : — 

"  To  paint  fair  Nature,  by  divine  command, 
Her  magic  pencil  in  his  glowing  ham!, 
A  Shakspeare  rose;  then,  to  expand  his  fame 
Wide  o'er  this  breathing  world,  a  Garrick  came. 
Though  sunk  in  death  the  forms  the  poet  drew, 
The  actor's  genius  bade  them  breathe  anew  ; 
Though,  like  the  bard  himself,  in  night  they  lay, 
Immortal  Garrick  call'd  them  back  to  day: 
And  till  eternity  with  power  sublime 
Shall  mark  the  mortal  hour  of  hoary  Time,  • 
Shakspeare  and  Garrick  like  twin-stars  shall  shine, 
And  earth  irradiate  with  a  beam  divine." 

It  would  be  an  insult  to  my  readers'  understandings  to  at- 
tempt anything  like  a  criticism  on  this  farrago  of  false 
thoughts  and  nonsense.  But  the  reflection  it  led  me  into  was 
a  kind  of  wonder,  how,  from  the  days  of  the  actor  here  cele- 
brated to  our  own,  it  should  have  been  the  fashion  to  compli- 
ment every  performer  in  his  turn,  that  has  had  the  luck  to 
please  the  town  in  any  of  the  great  characters  of  Shakspeare, 
with  the  notion  of  possessing  a  mind  congenial  with  thepoefs: 
how  people  should  come  thus  unaccountably  to  confound  the 
power  of  originating  poetical  images  and  conceptions  with 
the  (acuity  of  being  able  to  lead  or  recite  the  same  when  put 


350        on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

into  words  ;*  or  what  connexion  that  absolute  mastery  over 
the  heart  and  soul  of  man  which  a  great  dramatic  poet  pos- 
sesses, has  with  those  low  tricks  upon  the  eye  and  ear,  which 
a  player,  by  observing  a  few  general  effects  which  some 
common  passion,  as  grief,  anger,  &c,  usually  has  upon  the 
gestures  and  exterior,  can  so  easily  compass.  To  know  the 
internal  workings  and  movements  of  a  great  mind,  of  an 
Othello  or  a  Hamlet,  for  instance,  and  the  when,  and  the  why, 
and  the  how  far  they  should  be  moved  ;  to  what  pitch  a  pas- 
sion is  becoming ;  to  give  the  reins,  and  to  pull  in  the  curb 
exactly  at  the  moment  when  the  drawing  in  or  the  slackening 
is  most  graceful,  seems  to  demand  a  reach  of  intellect  of  a 
vastly  different  extent  from  that  which  is  employed  upon  the 
bare  imitation  of  the  signs  of  these  passions  in  the  counte- 
nance or  gesture,  which  signs  are  usually  observed  to  be 
most  lively  and  emphatic  in  the  weaker  sort  of  minds,  and 
which  signs  can,  after  all,  but  indicate  some  passion,  as  I  said 
before,  anger,  or  grief,  generally ;  but  of  the  motives  and 
grounds  of  the  passion,  wherein  it  differs  from  the  same  pas- 
sion in  low  and  vulgar  natures,  of  these  the  actor  can  give  no 
more  idea  by  his  face  or  gesture  than  the  eye  (without  a  met- 
aphor) can  speak  or  the  muscles  utter  intelligible  sounds. 
But  such  is  the  instantaneous  nature  of  the  impressions  which 
we  take  in  at  the  eye  and  ear  at  a  play-house,  compared  with 
the  slow  apprehension  oftentimes  of  the  understanding  in 
reading,  that  we  are  apt  not  oidy  to  sink  the  play-writer  in 
the  consideration  which  we  pay  to  the  actor,  but  even  to  iden- 
tify in  our  minds,  in  a  perverse  manner,  the  actor  with  the 
character  which  he  represents.  It  is  difficult  for  a  frequent 
play-goer  to  disembarrass  the  idea  of  Hamlet  from  the  person 
and  voice  of  Mr.  K.  We  speak  of  Lady  Macbeth,  while  we 
are  in  reality  thinking  of  Mrs.  S.  Nor  is  this  confusion  in- 
cidental alone  to  unlettered  persons,  who,  not  possessing  the 
advantage  of  reading,  are  necessarily  dependant  upon  the 
stage-playe.r  for  all  the  pleasure  which  they  can  receive  from 
the  drama,  and  to  whom  the  very  idea  of  what  an  author  is 
cannot  be  made  comprehensible  without  some  pain  and  per- 
plexity of  mind :  the  error  is  one  from  which  persons,  other- 
wise not  meanly  lettered,  find  it  almost  impossible  to  extricate 
themselves. 

*  It  is  observable  that  we  fall  into  this  confusion  only  in  dramatic  recita- 
tions. We  never  dream  that  the  gentleman  who  reads  Lucretius  in  public 
with  great  applause  is  therefore  a  threat  poet  and  philosopher;  nor  do  we  find 
that  Tom  Davis,  the  bookseller,  who  is  recorded  to  have  recited  the  Paradise 
Lost  better  than  any  man  111  Knjrland  in  his  day,  (though  '  cannot  help  think- 
ing  there  mu8l  lie  some  mistake  in  this  tradition,;  was  therefore,  by  his  inti- 
mate ft  iend  ,   el  upon  a  level  with  Milton. 


ON  SHAKSPEARE  S  TRAGEDIES.  351 

Never  let  me  be  so  ungrateful  as  to  forget  the  very  high 
degree  of  satisfaction  which  I  received  some  years  hack  from 
seeing,  for  the  first  time,  a  tragedy  of  Shakapeare  performed, 
in  which  those  two  great  performers  sustained  the  principal 

parte,  It  seemed  to  imhody  and  realize  concept  ions  which 
had  hitherto  assumed  no  distinct  shape.  But  dearly  do  we 
pay  all  our  life  after  for  this  juvenile  pleasure,  this  sense  of 
distinctness.  When  the  novelty  is  past,  we  lind  to  our  cost 
that,  instead  of  realizing  an  idea,  we  have  only  materialized 
and  brought  down  a  fine  vision  to  the  standard  of  flesh  and 
blood.  We  have  let  go  a  dream,  in  quest  of  an  unattainable 
substance. 

How  cruelly  this  operates  upon  the  mind,  to  have  its  free 
conceptions  thus  cramped  and  pressed  down  to  the  measure  of 
a  straight-lacing  actuality,  may  be  judged  from  that  delightful 
sensation  of  freshness  with  which  we  turn  to  those  plays  of 
Shakspeare  which  have  escaped  being  performed,  and  to  those 
passages  in  the  acting  plays  of  the  same  writer  which  have 
happily  been  left  out  in  the  performance.  How  far  the  very 
custom  of  hearing  anything  spouted  withers  and  blows  upon 
B  line  passage,  may  be  seen  in  those  speeches  from  Henry 
the  Fifth,  &c.  which  are  current  in  the  mouths  of  schoolboys 
from  their  being  found  in  Enfield's  Speaker,  and  such  kind  of 
books.  I  confess  myself  utterly  unable  to  appreciate  that  cel- 
ebrated soliloquy  in  Hamlet,  beginning  "To  be,  or  not  to  be," 
or  to  tell  whether  it  be  good,  bad,  or  indifferent;  it  has  been 
so  handled  and  pawed  about  by  declamatory  boys  and  men 
and  torn  so  inhumanly  from  its  living  place  and  principle  of 
continuity  in  the  play,  till  it  is  become  to  me  a  perfect  dead 
member. 

It  may  seem  a  paradox,  but  I  cannot  help  being  of  opinion 
that  the  plays  of  Shakspeare  are  less  calculated  for  perform- 
ance on  a  stage  than  those  of  almost  any  other  dramatist 
whatever.  Their  distinguishing  excellence  is  a  reason  that 
they  should  be  so.  There  is  so  much  in  them  which  comes 
not  under  the  province  of  acting,  with  which  eye,  and  tone, 
and  gesture  have  nothing  to  do. 

The  glory  of  the  scenic  art  is  to  personate  passion  and  the 
turns  of  passion  ;  and  the  more  coarse  and  palpable  the  pas- 
sion is,  the  more  hold  upon  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  spectators 
the  performer  obviously  possesses.  For  this  reason,  scolding 
scenes,  scenes  where  two  persons  talk  themselves  into  a  lit 
of  fury,  ami  then  m  a  surprising  manner  talk  themselves  out 
of  it  again;  have  always  been  the  most  popular  upon  our  stage. 
And  the  reason  is  plain,  because  the  spectators  are  lure  most 
palpably  appealed  to,  they  are   the  proper  judges   m  this  war 


352  on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

of  words,  they  are  the  legitimate  ring  that  should  be  formert 
round  such  "  intellectual  prize-fighters."  Talking  is  the 
direct  object  of  the  imitation  here.  But  in  all  the  best  dramas, 
and  in  Shakspeare  above  all,  how  obvious  it  is,  that  the  form 
of  speaking,  whether  it  be  in  soliloquy  or  dialogue,  is  only  a 
medium,  and  often  a  highly  artificial  one,  for  putting  the  reader 
or  spectator  into  possession  of  that  knowledge  of  the  inner 
structure  and  workings  of  mind  in  a  character,  which  he  could 
otherwise  never  have  arrived  at  in  that  form  of  composition  by 
any  gift  short  of  intuition.  We  do  here  as  we  do  with  novels 
written  in  the  epistolary  form.  How  many  improprieties,  per- 
fect solecisms  in  letter-writing,  do  we  put  up  with  in  Clarissa, 
and  other  books,  for  the  sake  of  the  delight  which  that  form 
upon  the  whole  gives  us. 

But  the  practice  of  stage  representation  reduces  everything 
to  a  controversy  of  elocution.  Every  character,  from  the 
boisterous  blasphemings  of  Bajazet  to  the  shrinking  timidity 
of  womanhood,  must  play  the  orator.  The  love-dialogues  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  those  silver-sweet  sounds  of  lovers'  tongues 
by  night ;  the  more  intimate  and  sacred  sweetness  of  nuptial 
colloquy  between  an  Othello  or  a  Posthumus  with  their  married 
wives  ;  all  those  delicacies  which  are  so  delightful  in  the  read- 
ing, as  when  we  read  of  those  youthful  dalliances  in  paradise — 

"  As  beseem'd 
Fair  couple  linlt'd  in  happy  nuptial  league, 
Alone  ;" 

by  the  inherent  fault  of  stage  representation,  how  are  these 
things  sullied  and  turned  from  their  very  nature  by  being  ex- 
posed to  a  large  assembly  ;  when  such  speeches  as  Imogen  ad- 
dresses to  her  lord  come  drawling  out  of  the  mouth  of  a  hired 
actress,  whose  courtship,  though  nominally  addressed  to  the 
personated  Posthumus,  is  manifestly  aimed  at  the  specta- 
tors, who  are  to  judge  of  her  endearments  and  her  returns  of 
love. 

The  character  of  Hamlet  is  perhaps  that  by  which,  since 
the  days  of  Betterton,  a  succession  of  popular  performers  have 
had  the  greatest  ambition  to  distinguish  themselves.  The 
length  of  the  part  may  be  one  of  their  reasons.  But  for  the 
character  itself,  we  find  it  in  a  play ;  and  therefore  we  judge 
it  a  fit  subject  of  dramatic  representation.  Tin;  play  itself 
abounds  in  maxims  and  reflections  beyond  any  other,  and 
therefore  we  consider  it  as  a  proper  vehicle  for  conveying 
moral  instruction.  But  Hamlet  himself — what  does  he  suffer 
meanwhile  by  being  dragged  forth  as  (lie  public  schoolmaster, 
to  give  lectures  to  the  crowd!  Why,  nine  parts  in  ten  of 
• .  hut   Hamlet  does  are  transactions  between   himself  and  his 


on  siiaxspeare's  tragedies.  353 

moral  sense;  they  are  the  effusions  of  his  solitary  musings, 
•which  he  retires  to  holes,  and  corners,  and  the  must  sequestered 

parts  of  the  palace  to  pour  forth;  or  rather,  they  are  the  silent 
meditations  with  which  his  bosom  is  bursting,  reduced  to  words 
for  the  sake  of  the  reader,  who  must  else  remain  ignorant  oi 
what  is  passing  there.  These  profound  sorrows,  these  light- 
aiul-noise-ahhoning  ruminations,  which  the  tongue  scarco 
dares  utter  to  deaf  walls  and  chambers,  how  can  they  be  rep- 
resented by  a  gesticulating  actor,  who  comes  and  mouths 
them  out  before  an  audience,  making  four  hundred  people  his 
Confidants  at  once.  I  say  not.  that  it  is  the  fault  of  (lit;  actor 
so  to  do  ;  he  must  pronounce  them  ore  rotundo,  he  must  ac- 
company  them  with  his  eye,  he  must  insinuate  them  into  his 
auditory  by  some  trick  of  eye,  tone,  or  gesture,  or  he  fails. 
He  must  be  thinking  all  the  while  of  his  appearance,  because  lie 
knows  that  all  the  while  the  spectators  are  judging  of  it.  And 
this  is  the  way  to  represent  the  shy,  negligent,  retiring  Hamlet. 
It  is  true  that  there  is  no  other  mode  of  conveying  a  vast 
quantity  of  thought  and  feeling  to  a  great  portion  of  the  audi- 
ence, who  otherwise  would  never  earn  it  for  themselves  by 
reading,  and  the  intellectual  acquisition  gained  this  way  may, 
for  aught  I  know,  be  inestimable ;  but  I  am  not  arguing  that 
Hamlet  should  not  be  acted,  but  how  much  Hamlet  is  made 
another  thing  by  being  acted.  I  have  heard  much  of  the 
wonders  which  Garrick  performed  in  this  part ;  but,  as  I  never 
saw  him,  I  must  have  leave  to  doubt  whether  the  representa- 
tion of  such  a  character  came  within  the  province  of  his  art. 
Those  who  tell  me  of  him,  speak  of  his  eye,  of  the  magic  of 
his  eye.  and  his  commanding  voice — physical  properties, 
vastly  desirable  in  an  actor,  and  without  which  he  can  never 
insinuate  meaning  into  an  auditory  ;  but  what  have  they  to  do 
with  Hamlet ;  what  have  they  to  do  with  intellect?  In  fact, 
the  things  aimed  at  in  theatrical  representation  are  to  arrest 
the  spectator's  eye  upon  the  form  and  the  gesture,  and  so  to 
gain  a  more  favourable  hearing  to  what  is  spoken  :  it  is  not 
what  the  character  is,  but  how  he  looks  ;  not  what  he  says, 
but  how  he  speaks  it.  I  see  no  reason  to  think  that  if  the 
play  of  Hamlet  were  written  over  again  by  6ome  such  writer 
as  Banks  or  Lillo,  retaining  the  process  of  the  story,  but  totally 
omitting  all  the  poetry  of  it,  all  the  divine  features  of  Shak- 
Bpeare,  his  stupendous  intellect,  and  only  taking  care  to  give 
us  enough  of  passionate  dialogue,  which  Banks  or  Lillo  w<  r< 
never  at  a  loss  to  furnish,  I  see  not  how  the  effect  could  be 
much  different  upon  an  audience,  nor  how  the  actor  has  it  in 
his  power  to  represent  Shakspeare  to  us  differently  from  his 
representation  of  Banks  or  Liilo.     Hamlet  woidd  still  be  a 


354  ON  SHAKSPEARE  S  TRAGEDIES. 

youthful  accomplished  prince,  and  must  be  gracefully  person- 
ated ;  lie  might  be  puzzled  in  his  mind,  wavering  in  his  con- 
duct, seemingly  cruel  to  Ophelia ;  he  might  see  a  ghost,  and 
start  at  it,  and  address  it  kindly  when  he  found  it  to  be  his 
father  :  all  this  in  the  poorest  and  most  homely  language  of 
the  servilest  creeper  after  nature  that  ever  consulted  the  palate 
of  an  audience,  without  troubling  Shakspeare  for  the  matter : 
and  I  see  not  but  there  would  be  room  for  all  the  power  which 
an  actor  has  to  display  itself.  All  the  passions  and  changes 
of  passion  might  remain  :  for  those  are  much  less  difficult  to 
write  or  act  than  is  thought ;  it  is  a  trick  easy  to  be  attained : 
it  is  but  rising  or  falling  a  note  or  two  in  the  voice,  a  whisper, 
with  a  significant  foreboding  look  to  announce  its  approach,  and 
so  contagious  the  counterfeit  appearance  of  any  emotion  is, 
that  let  the  words  be  what  they  will,  the  look  and  tone  shall 
carry  it  off  and  make  it  pass  for  deep  skill  in  the  passions. 

It  is  common  for  people  to  talk  of  Shakspeare's  plays  being 
so  natural;  that  everybody  can  understand  him.  They  are 
natural  indeed,  they  are  grounded  deep  in  nature,  so  deep  that 
the  depth  of  them  lies  out  of  the  reach  of  most  of  us.  You 
shall  hear  the  same  person  say  that  George  Barnwell  is  very 
natural,  and  Othello  is  very  natural,  that  they  are  both  very 
deep  ;  and  to  them  they  are  the  same  kind  of  thing.  At  the 
one  they  sit  and  shed  tears,  because  a  good  sort  of  young  man 
is  tempted  by  a  naughty  woman  to  commit  a  trifling  peccadillo, 
the  murder  of  an  uncle  or  so,#  that  is  all,  and  so  comes  to  an 
untimely  end,  which  is  so  moving  ;  and  at  the  other  because  a 
blackamoor  in  a  fit  of  jealousy  kills  his  innocent  white  wife  : 
and  the  odds  are,  that  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  would  wil- 
lingly behold  the  same  catastrophe  happen  to  both  the  heroes, 
and  have  thought  the  rope  more  due  to  Othello  than  to  Barn- 
well. For  of  the  texture  of  Othello's  mind,  the  inward  con- 
struction marvellously  laid  open  with  all  its  strengths  and 
weaknesses,  its  heroic  confidences  and  its  human  misgivings, 
its  agonies  of  hate  springing  from  the  depths  of  love,  they  see 
no  more  than  the  spectators  at  a  cheaper  rate,  who  pay  their 

*  If  this  note  could  hope  to  meet  the  eye  of  any  of  the  managers,  I  would 
entreat  and  bfeg  of  them,  in  the  name  of  both  the  galleries,  that  this  insult 
upon  the  morality  (.1  the  common  people  of  London  should  cease  to  be  eter- 
nally repeated  in  the  holyday  weeks.  Why  are  the  'prentices  of  this  famous 
and  well-governed  city,  instead  of  an  amusement,  to  be  treated  over  and  over 
agairi  with  a  nauseous  sermon  of  George  Barnwell  I  Why  nt  the  end  of  tkeir 
vistas  are  we  to  place  the  gallows  ?  Were  I  an  uncle,  I  should  not  much  like 
a  nephew  of  mine  to  have  such  an  example  placed  before  his  eyes.  It  is 
really  making  uncle-murder-  too  trivial  to  exhibit  it  as  done  upon  such  slight 
motives  ;  it,  is  attributing  too  much  to  such  characters  as  Millwood  ;  it  is 
putting  things  into  the  heads  of  good  young  men,  which  they  would  never 
otherwise  have  dreamed  of.  Uncles  that  think  anything  of  their  lives  should 
fairly  petition  the  chamberlain  against  it. 


ON    SIIAKSPEARE  S    TRAGEDIES.  355 

pennies  apiece  to  look  through  the  man's  telescope  in  Leices- 
ter fields,  sec  into  the  inward  plot  and  topography  of  the 
moon.  Some  dim  thing  or  other  they  see  ;  they  see  an  actor 
personating  a  passion,  of  grief,  or  anger,  for  instance,  and  they 
recognise  it  as  a  copy  of  the  usual  external  effects  of  such 
passions  ;  or  at  least  as  being  true  to  that  symbol  of  the  emo- 
tion which  passes  current  at  the  theatre  for  it,  for  it  is  often  no 
more  than  that :  but  of  the  grounds  of  the  passion,  its  corres- 
pondence to  a  great  or  heroic  nature,  which  is  the  only  worthy 
object  of  tragedy — that  common  auditors  know  anything  of 
this,  or  can  have  any  such  notions  dinned  into  them  by  the 
mere  strength  of  an  actor's  lungs — that  apprehensions  foreign 
to  them  should  be  thus  infused  into  them  by  storm,  I  can  nei- 
ther believe,  nor  understand  how  it  can  be  possible. 

We  talk  of  Shakspcare's  admirable  observation  of  life,  when 
we  should  feel,  that  not  from  a  pettv  inquisition  into  those 
cheap  and  every-day  characters  which  surrounded  him,  as 
they  surround  us,  but  from  his  own  mind,  which  was,  to  bor- 
row a  phrase  of  Ben  Jonson's,  the  very  "  sphere  of  humanity," 
he  fetched  those  images  of  virtue  and  of  knowledge,  of  which 
every  one  of  us,  recognising  a  part,  think  we  comprehend  in 
our  natures  the  whole ;  and  oftentimes  mistake  the  powers 
which  he  positively  creates  in  us  for  nothing  more  than  indi- 
genous faculties  of  our  own  minds,  which  only  waited  the 
application  of  corresponding  virtues  in  him  to  return  a  full  and 
clear  echo  of  the  same. 

To  return  to  Hamlet.  Among  the  distinguishing  features 
of  that  wonderful  character,  one  of  the  most  interesting  (yet 
painful)  is  that  soreness  of  mind  which  makes  him  treat  the 
intrusions  of  Polonius  with  harshness,  and  that  asperity  which 
he  puts  on  in  his  interviews  with  Ophelia.  These  tokens  of 
an  unhinged  mind  (if  they  be  not  mixed  in  the  latter  case  with 
a  profound  artifice  of  love,  to  alienate  Ophelia  by  affected  dis- 
courtesies, so  to  prepare  her  mind  for  the  breaking  off  of  that 
loving  intercourse,  which  can  no  longer  find  a  place  amid 
business  so  serious  as  that  which  he  has  to  do)  are  parts  of 
his  character,  which  to  reconcile  with  our  admiration  of  Ham- 
let, the  most  patient  consideration  of  his  situation  is  no  more 
than  necessary ;  they  are  what  we  forgive  aftcriran?,  and 
explain  by  the  whole  of  his  character,  but  at  the  time  they 
are  harsh  and  unpleasant.  Yet  such  is  the  actor's  necessity 
of  giving  strong  blows  to  the  audience,  that  I  have  neve?  seen 
a  player  in  this  character  who  did  not  exaggerate  and  strain 
to  the  utmost  these  ambiguous  features — these  temporary  de- 
formities in  the  character.  They  make  him  express  a  vulgar 
scorn  at  Polonius  which  utterly  degrades  his  gentility,  and 


356       on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

which  no  explanation  can  render  palatable  ;  they  make  him 
show  contempt,  and  curl  up  the  nose  at  Ophelia's  father — con- 
tempt in  its  very  grossest  and  most  hateful  form  :  but  they 
get  applause  by  it :  it  is  natural,  people  say ;  that  is,  the 
words  are  scornful,  and  the  actor  expresses  scorn,  and  that 
they  can  judge  of:  but  why  so  much  scorn,  and  of  that  sort, 
they  never  think  of  asking. 

So  to  Ophelia.  All  the  Hamlets  that  I  have  ever  seen 
rant  and  rave  at  her  as  if  she  had  committed  some  great  crime, 
and  the  audience  are  highly  pleased,  because  the  words  of  the 
part  are  satirical,  and  they  are  enforced  by  the  strongest  ex- 
pression of  satirical  indignation  of  which  the  face  and  voice 
are  capable.  But,  then,  whether  Hamlet  is  likely  to  have  put 
on  such  brutal  appearances  to  a  lady  whom  he  loved  so  dearly, 
is  never  thought  on  ;  the  truth  is,  that  in  all  such  deep  affec- 
tions as  had  subsisted  between  Hamlet  and  Ophelia,  there  is 
a  stock  of  supererogatory  love,  (if  I  may  venture  to  use  the  ex- 
pression) which,  in  any  great  grief  of  heart,  especially  where  that 
which  preys  upon  the  mind  cannot  be  communicated,  confers 
a  kind  of  indulgence  upon  the  grieved  party  to  express  itself, 
even  to  its  heart's  dearest  object,  in  the  language  of  a  tempo- 
rary alienation ;  but  it  is  not  alienation,  it  is  a  distraction 
purely,  and  so  it  always  makes  itself  to  be  felt  by  that  object : 
it  is  not  anger,  but  grief  assuming  the  appearance  of  anger — 
love  awkwardly  counterfeiting  hate,  as  sweet  countenances 
when  they  try  to  frown  :  but  such  sternness  and  fierce  disgust 
as  Hamlet  is  made  to  show  is  no  counterfeit,  but  the  real  face 
of  absolute  aversion — of  irreconcilable  alienation.  It.  may 
be  said  he  puts  on  the  madman  ;  but,  then,  he  should  only  so 
far  put  on  this  counterfeit  lunacy  as  his  own  real  distraction 
will  give  him  leave  ;  that  is,  incompletely,  imperfectly  ;  not 
in  that  confirmed,  practised  way,  like  a  master  of  his  art,  or, 
as  Dame  Quickly  would  say,  "  like  one  of  those  harlotry 
players." 

I  mean  no  disrespect  to  any  actor,  but  the  sort  of  pleasure 
which  Shakspeare's  plays  give  in  the  acting,  seems  to  me  not 
at  all  to  differ  from  that  which  the  audience  receive  from  those  of 
other  writers ;  and,  they  being  in  themselves  essentially  so  differ- 
ent from  all  others,  I  must  conclude  that  there  is  something  in 
the  nature  of  acting  which  levels  all  distinctions.  And,  in  fact, 
who  does  not  speak  indifferently  of  the  Gamester  and  of 
Macbeth  as  fine  stage  performances,  and  praise  the  Mrs.  Bev- 
erley in  the  same  way  as  the  Lady  Macbeth  of  Mrs.  S.  ? 
Belvidera,  and  Calista,  and  Isabella,  and  Euphrasia,  are  they 
leas  liked  than  Imogen,  or  than  Juliet,  or  than  Desdemona? 
Are  they  not  spoken  of  and  remembered  in  the  same  way  ?     Ts 


on  shakspeaue's  tragedies.       Uo7 

not  the  female  performer  as  great  (as  they  call  it)  in  one  as  in 
the  other?  Did  not  Garrick  shjne,  and  was  he  not  ambitious 
of  shining  in  every  drawling  tragedy  that  his  wretched  day 
produced — the  productions  of  the  Hills,  and  the  Murphys, 
and  the  lirouns — and  shall  lie  have  that  honour  to  dwell  in 
our  minds  for  ever  as  an  inseparable  concomitant  with  Shak- 
speare? A  kindred  mind!  Oh, , who  can  read  that  affecting 
sonnet  of  Shakspeare  which  alludes  to  his  profession  as  a 
player: — 

"  Oh  for  my  sake  do  you  with  fortune  chide, 
The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmless  deeds, 
That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide 
Than  public  means  which  public  custom  breeds — 
Tbeilce  comes  it  that  my  uame  receives  a  brand  ; 
And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdui  d 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dier's  hand" — 

Or  that  other  confession  : — 

"  Alas !   'tis  true,  I  have  gone  here  and  there, 
And  made  myself  a  motley  to  thy  view, 
Gored  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is  most  dear"- 

Who  can  read  these  instances  of  jealous  self-watchfulness  in 
our  sweet  Shakspeare,  and  dream  of  any  congeniality  be- 
tween him  and  one  that,  by  every  tradition  of  him,  appears  to 
have  been  as  mere  a  player  as  ever  existed  ;  to  have  had  his 
mind  tainted  with  the  lowest  players'  vices — envy  and  jeal- 
ousy, and  miserable  cravings  after  applause ;  one  who,  in  the 
exercise  of  his  profession,  was  jealous  even  o!  the  women- 
performers  that  stood  in  his  way  ;  a  manager  full  of  manage- 
rial tricks,  and  stratagems,  and  finesse  :  that  any  resemblance 
should  be  dreamed  of  between  him  and  Shakspeare — Shaks- 
peare who,  in  the  plenitude  and  consciousness  of  his  own 
powers,  could  with  that  noble  modesty,  which  we  can  neitln  r 
imitate  nor  appreciate,  express  himself  thus  of  his  own  sense 
of  his  own  defects  : — 

"  Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  in  hope, 

Featured  like  him,  like  him  with  friends  possess'd  ; 

Desiring  this  man's  art,  anil  that  man's  scope." 

I  am  almost  disposed  to  deny  to  Garrick  the  merit  of  being 
an  admirer  of  Shakspeare.  A  true  lover  of  his  excellences 
he  certainly  was  not;  for  would  any  true  lover  of  them  have 
admitted  into  his  matchless  scenes  such  ribald  trash  as  Tate 
and  Gibber,  and  the  rest  of  them,  that 

"With  their  darkness  durst  affront  his  light," 

have  foisted  into  the  acting  plays  of  Shakspeare  ?  I  believe 
it  impossible  that,  he  could  have  had  a  proper  reverence  for 
Shakspeare,  and  have  condescended  to  go  through  that  interpo- 


358        on  shakspare's  tragedies. 

lated  scene  in  Richard  the  Third,  in  which  Richard  tries  to  break 
his  wife's  heart  by  telling  her  he  loves  another  woman,  and  says, 
"  if  she  suvives  this,  she  is  immortal."  Yet  I  doubt  not  he  de- 
livered this  vulgar  stuff  with  as  much  anxiety  of  emphasis  as 
any  of  the  genuine  parts  :  and  for  acting,  it  is  as  well  calculated 
as  any.  But  we  have  seen  the  part  of  Richard  lately  pro- 
duce great  fame  to  an  actor  by  his  manner  of  playing  it,  and 
it  lets  us  into  the  secret  of  acting,  and  of  popular  judgments 
of  Shakspeare  derived  from  acting.  Not  one  of  the  specta- 
tors who  have  witnessed  Mr.  C.'s  exertions  in  that  part,  but 
has  come  away  with  a  proper  conviction  that  Richard  is  a  very 
wicked  man,  and  kills  little  children  in  their  beds,  with  some- 
thing like  the  pleasure  which  the  giants  and  ogres  in  chil- 
dren's books  are  represented  to  have  taken  in  that  practice ; 
moreover,  that  he  is  very  close,  and  shrewd,  and  devilish  cun- 
ning, for  you  can  see  that  by  his  eye. 

But  is,  in  fact,  this  the  impression  we  have  in  reading  the 
Richard  of  Shakspeare  ?  Do  we  feel  anything  like  disgust,  as 
we  do  at  that  butcher-like  representation  of  him  that  passes 
for  him  on  the  stage  ?  A  horror  at  his  crimes  blends  with  the 
.  effect  which  we  feel,  but  how  is  it  qualified,  how  is  it  carried 
off,  by  the  rich  intellect  which  he  displays,  his  resources,  his 
wit,  his  buoyant  spirits,  his  vast  knowledge  and  insight  into 
characters,  the  poetry  of  his  part — not  an  atom  of  all  which 
is  made  perceivable  in  Mr.  C.'s  way  of  acting  it.  Nothing 
but  his  crimes,  his  actions,  is  visible  ;  they  are  prominent  and 
staring ;  the  murderer  stands  out,  but  where  is  the  lofty 
genius,  the  man  of  vast  capacity — the  profound,  the  witty, 
accomplished  Richard  1 

The  truth  is,  the  characters  of  Shakspeare  are  so  much 
the  objects  of  meditation  rather  than  of  interest  or  curiosity 
as  to  their  actions,  that  while  we  are  reading  any  of  his  great, 
criminal  characters — Macbeth,  Richard,  even  Iago — we  think 
not  so  much  of  the  crimes  which  they  commit  as  of  the  am- 
bition, the  aspiring  spirit,  the  intellectual  activity,  which 
prompts  them  to  overleap  these  moral  fences.  Barnwell  is  a 
wretched  murderer  ;  there  is  a  certain  fitness  between  his 
neck  and  the  rope  ;  he  is  the  legitimate  heir  to  the  gallows  ; 
nobody  who  thinks  at  all  can  think  of  any  alleviating  circum- 
stances in  his  case  to  make  him  a  fit  object  of  mercy.  Or, 
to  take  an  instance  from  the  higher  tragedy,  what  else  but  a 
mere  assassin  is  (Mcnalvon?  Do  we  think  of  anything  but 
of  the  crime  which  he  commits,  and  the  rack  which  he  de- 
serves? That  is  all  which  we  really  think  about  him.  Whereas, 
in  corresponding  characters  in  Shakspeare,  so  little  do  the  ac- 


ON    SIIAKSPEAUE  S    TRAGEDIES.  359 

tions  comparatively  affect  us,  that  while  the  impulses,  the 
inner  mind  in  all  its  perverted  greatness,  solely  seems  real, 
and  is  exclusively  attended  to,  the  crime  is  comparatively 
nothing.  But  when  we  .see  ihese  things  r<  presented,  the  acts 
■which  they  do  are  comparatively  everything,  their  unpul 
nothing.  The  state  of  sublime  emotion  into  which  we  are 
elevaled  by  those  images  of  night  ami  horror  which  Macbeth 
is  made  to  utter,  that  solemn  prelude  with  which  he  enter- 
tains the  time  till  the  bell  shall  strike  which  is  to  call  him  to 
murder  Duncan — when  we  no  longer  read  it  in  a  book,  when 
we  have  given  up  that  vantage  ground  of  abstraction  which 
reading  possesses  over  seeing,  and  come  to  see  a  man  in  his 
bodily  shape  before  our  eyes  actually  preparing  to  commit  a 
murder,  if  the  acting  be  true  and  impressive,  as  1  have  wit- 
nessed it  in  Mr.  K.'s  performance  of  that  part,  the  painful 
anxiety  about  the  act,  the  natural  longing  to  prevent  it  while 
it  yet  seems  impenetrated,  the  too  close  pressing  semblance 
of  reality,  give  a  pain  and  an  uneasiness  which  totally  destroy 
all  the  delight  which  the  words  in  the  book  convey,  where 
the  deed  doing  never  presses  upon  us  with  the  painful  sense 
of  presence  ;  it  rather  seems  to  belong  to  history — to  something 
past  and  inevitable,  if  it  has  anything  to  do  with  time  at  all. 
The  sublime  images,  the  poetry  alone,  is  that  which  is  present 
to  our  minds  in  the  reading. 

So  to  see  Lear  acted — to  see  an  old  man  tottering  about  the 
stage  with  a  walking--stick,  turned  out  of  doors  by  his  daugh- 
ters in  a  rainy  night,  has  nothing  in  it  but  what  is  painful  and 
disgusting.  We  want  to  take  him  into  shelter  and  relieve 
him.  That  is  all  the  feeling  which  the  acting  of  Lear  ever 
produced  in  me.  But  the  Lear  of  Shakspeare  cannot  be  act- 
ed. The  contemptible  machinery  by  which  they  mimic  the 
storm  which  he  goes  out  in,  is  not  more  inadequate  to  repre- 
sent the  horrors  of  the  real  elements,  than  any  actor  can  be  to 
represent  Lear:  they  might  more  easily  propose  to  personate 
the  Satan  of  Milton  upon  a  stage,  or  one  of  Michael  Angelo's  ter- 
rible figures.  The  greatness  of  Lear  is  not  in  corporeal  dimen- 
sion, but  in  intellectual  :  the  explosions  of  his  passion  are  terri- 
ble as  a  volcano  :  they  are  storms  turning  up  and  disclosing  to 
the  bottom  that  sea,  his  mind,  with  all  its  vast  riches.  It  is  his 
mind  which  is  laid  bare.  This  case  of  flesh  and  blood  seems 
too  insignificant  to  be  thought  on  ;  even  as  he  himself  neglects 
it.  On  the  stage  we  see  nothing  but  corporeal  infirmities  and 
weakness,  the  impotence  of  rage;  while  we  read  it,  we  see 
not  Lear,  but  we  are  Lear — we  arc  in  his  mind,  we  are  sus- 
tained by  a  grandeur  which  baffles  the  malice  of  daughters 
and  storms ;  in  the  aberrations  of  his  reason  we  discover  a 


360       on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

mighty  irregular  power  of  reasoning,  immethodized  from  the 
ordinary  purposes  of  life,  but  exerting  its  powers,  as  the  wind 
blows  where  it  listeth,  at  will  upon  the  corruptions  and  abuses 
of  mankind.  What  have  looks  or  tones  to  do  with  that  sub- 
lime identification  of  his  age  with  that  of  the  heavens  them- 
selves, when,  in  his  reproaches  to  them  for  conniving  at  the 
injustice  of  his  children,  he  reminds  them  that  "they  them- 
selves are  old."  What  gesture  shall  we  appropriate  to  this  I 
What  has  the  voice  or  the  eye  to  do  with  such  things  ?  But 
the  play  is  beyond  all  art.  as  the  tamperings  with  it  show :  it 
is  too  hard  and  stony  ;  it  must  have  love-scenes,  and  a  happy 
ending.  It  is  not  enough  that  Cordelia  is  a  daughter,  she 
must  shine  as  a  lover  too.  Tate  has  put  his  hook  in  the  nos- 
trils of  this  leviathan,  for  Garrick  and  his  followers,  the  show- 
men of  the  scene,  to  draw  the  mighty  beast  about  more  easi- 
ly. A  happy  ending  ! — as  if  the  living  martyrdom  that  Lear 
had  gone  through — the  flaying  of  his  feelings  alive,  did  not 
make  a  fair  dismissal  from  the  stage  of  life  the  only  decorous 
thing  for  him.  If  he  is  to  live  and  be  happy  after,  if  he  could 
sustain  this  world's  burden  after,  why  all  this  pudder  and  prep- 
aration, why  torment  us  with  all  this  unnecessary  sympathy  ? 
As  if  the  childish  pleasure  of  getting  his  gilt  robes  and  scep- 
tre again  could  tempt  him  to  act  over  again  his  misused  sta- 
tion ;  as  if,  at  his  years,  and  with  his  experience,  anything  was 
left  but  to  die. 

Lear  is  essentially  impossible  to  be  represented  on  a  stage. 
But  how  many  dramatic  personages  are  there  in  Shakspeare, 
which,  though  more  tractable  and  feasible  (if  I  may  so  speak) 
than  Lear,  yet,  from  some  circumstance,  some  adjunct  to  their 
character,  are  improper  to  be  shown  to  our  bodily  eye.  Othel- 
lo, for  instance.  Nothing  can  be  more  soothing,  more  flat- 
tering to  the  nobler  parts  of  our  natures,  than  to  read  of  a 
young  Venetian  lady  of  highest  extraction,  through  the  force 
of  love,  and  from  a  sense  of  merit  in  him  whom  she  loved,  lay- 
ing aside  every  consideration  of  kindred,  and  country,  and 
colour,  and  wedding  with  a  coal-black  Moor — (for  such  he  is 
represented,  in  the  imperfect  state  of  knowledge  respecting 
foreign  countries  in  those  days,  compared  with  our  own,  or  in 
compliance  with  popular  notions,  though  the  Moors  are  now 
well  enough  known  to  be  by  many  shades  less  unworthy  of  a 
white  woman's  fancy) — it  is  the  perfect  triumph  of  virtue 
over  accidents,  of  the  imagination  over  the  senses.  She  sees 
(  Hlndlo's  colour  in  his  mind.  But  upon  the  stage,  when  the 
imagination  is  no  longer  the  ruling  faculty,  but  we  are  left,  to 
our  poor  unassisted  senses,  I  appeal  to  every  one  that  has 
seen  Othello  played,  whether  he  did  not,  on  the  contrary,  sink 


ON    SHAKSrEARE's    TRAGEDIES.  301 

Othello^s  mind  in  his  colour  ;  whether  he  did  not  find  some- 
thing extremely  revolting  in  the  courtship  and  wedded  carca- 
ses of  Othello  and  Deedemona  ;  and  whether  the  actual  sight 
of  the  thing  did  not  overweigh  all  that  beautiful  compromise 
which  we  make  in  reading ;  and  the  reason  it  should  do  so  is 
obvious,  because  there  is  just  so  much  reality  presented  to 
our  senses  as  to  give  a  perception  of  disagreement,  with  not 
enough  of  belief  in  the  internal  motives — all  that  which  is 
unseen — to  overpower  and  reconcile  the  first  and  obvious  pre- 
judices.* What  we  see  upon  a  stage  is  body  and  bodily  ac- 
tion ;  what  we  are  conscious  of  in  reading  is  almost  exclu- 
sively the  mind,  and  its  movements:  and  this  I  think  may 
sufficiently  account  for  the  very  different  sort  of  delight  with 
which  the  same  play  so  often  affects  us  in  the  reading  and 
the  seeing. 

It  requires  little  reflection  to  perceive,  that  if  those  char- 
acters in  Shakspeare  which  are  within  the  precincts  of  nature, 
have  yet  something  in  them  which  appeals  too  exclusively  to 
the  imagination  to  admit  of  their  being  made  objects  to  the 
senses  without  suffering  a  change  and  a  diminution — that  still 
stronger  the  objection  must  lie  against  representing  another 
line  of  characters,  which  Shakspeare  has  introduced  to  give 
a  wildness  and  a  supernatural  elevation  to  his  scenes,  as  if  to 
remove  them  still  farther  from  that  assimilation  to  common 
life  in  which  their  excellence  is  vulgarly  supposed  to  consist. 
When  we  read  the  incantations  of  those  terrible  beings,  trie 
witches,  in  Macbeth,  though  some  of  the  ingredients  of  their 
hellish  composition  savour  of  the  grotesque,  yet  is  the  effect 
upon  us  other  than  the  most  serious  and  appalling  that  can  be 
imagined  ?  Do  we  not  feel  spell-bound  as  Macbeth  was  ? 
Can  any  mirth  accompany  a  sense  of  their  presence  ?  We 
might  as  well  laugh  under  a  consciousness  of  the  principle 
of  Evil  himself  being  truly  and  really  present  with  us.  But 
attempt  to  bring  these  beings  on  to  a  stage,  and  vou  turn  them 
instantly  into  so  many  old  women,  that  men  and  children  are 
to  laugh  at.  Contrary  to  the  old  saying,  that  "  seeing  is  be 
lieving,"  the  sight  actually  destroys  the  faith  :  and  the  mirth 
in  which  we  indulge   at  their   expense,  when  we   see  these 

*  The  error  of  supposing  that  because  Othello's  colour  does  not  offend  as 
in  the  reading,  it  should  also  not  offend  us  in  the  seeing-,  is  just  sucn  a  fallacy 
as  supposing  that  an  Adam  and  Eve  in  a  picture  shall  affect  us  just  as  they  do* 
iq  the  poem.  But  in  the  poem  we  for  a  while  have  paradisaical  senses  given 
vis,  which  vanish  when  we  see  a  man  and  his  wife  without  clothes  in  a 
ture.  The  painters  themselves  feel  this,  as  is  apparent  by  the  awkward  shifts 
they  have  recourse  to  to  make  them  look  not  quite  naked  ;  by  a  prophetic  an- 
achronism, antedating  the  invention  of  rig-leaves.  So  in  the  reading  of  th« 
play,  we  see  with  Desdeinona's  eyes ;  in  the  seeing  of  it,  we  are  forced  to  look 
with  our  own 

31  Q 


362  on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

creatures  upon  a  stage,  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  indemnification 
which  we  make  to  ourselves  for  the  terror  which  they  put  us 
in  when  reading  made  them  an  object  of  belief — when  we  sur- 
rendered up  our  reason  to  the  poet,  as  children  to  their  nurses 
and  their  elders  ;  and  we  laugh  at  our  fears,  as  children  who 
thought  they  saw  something  in  the  dark  triumph  when  the 
bringing  in  of  a  candle  discovers  the  vanity  of  their  fears. 
For  this  exposure  of  supernatural  agents  upon  a  stage  is  tru- 
ly bringing  in  a  candle  to  expose  their  own  delusiveness.  It 
is  the  solitary  taper  and  the  book  that  generates  a  faith  in 
these  terrors  :  a  ghost  by  chandelier  light,  and  in  good  compa- 
ny, deceives  no  spectators — a  ghost  that  can  be  measured  by 
the  eye,  and  his  human  dimensions  made  out  at  leisure.  The 
sight  of  a  well-lighted  house  and  a  well-dressed  audience 
shall  arm  the  most  nervous  child  against  any  apprehensions  : 
as  Tom  Brown  says  of  the  impenetrable  skin  of  Achilles 
with  his  impenetrable  armour  over  it,  "  Bully  Dawson  would 
have  fought  the  devil  with  such  advantages.'' 

Much  has  been  said,  and  deservedly,  in  reprobation  of  the 
vile  mixture  which  Dryden  has  thrown  into  the  Tempest : 
doubtless  without  some  such  vicious  alloy,  the  impure  ears  of 
that  age  would  never  have  sat  out  to  hear  so  much  innocence 
of  love  as  is  contained  in  the  sweet  courtship  of  Ferdinand  and 
Miranda.  But  is  the  Tempest  of  Shakspeare  at  all  a  subject 
for  stage  representation  ?  It  is  one  thing  to  read  of  an  en- 
chanter, and  to  believe  the  wondrous  tale  while  we  are  read- 
ing it ;  but  to  have  a  conjurer  brought  before  us  in  his  con- 
juring-gown,  with  his  spirits  about  him,  which  none  but  him- 
self and  some  hundred  of  favoured  spectators  before  the  cur- 
tain are  supposed  to  see,  involves  such  a  quantity  of  the  hate- 
ful incredible,  that  all  our  reverence  for  the  author  cannot 
hinder  us  from  perceiving  such  gross  attempts  upon  the  senses 
to  be  in  the  highest  degree  childish  and  inefficient.  Spirits 
and  fairies  cannot  be  represented,  they  cannot  even  be  painted 
— they  can  only  be  believed.  But  the  elaborate  and  anxious 
provision  of  scenery  which  the  luxury  of  the  age  demands,  in 
these  cases  works  a  quite  contrary  effect  to  what  is  intended. 
That  which,  in  comedy,  or  plays  of  familiar  life,  adds  so  much 
to  the  life  of  the  imitation,  in  plays  which  appeal  to  the  higher 
faculties  positively  destroys  the  illusion  which  it  is  introduced 
to  aid.  A  parlour,  or  a  drawing-room — a  library  opening  into 
a  garden — a  garden  with  an  alcove  in  it — a  street,  or  the  pi- 
azza of  Covent  Garden,  does  well  enough  in  a  scene  ;  we  are 
content  to  give  as  much  credit,  to  it  as  it  demands  ;  or  rather, 
we  think  little  about  it — it  is  little  more  than  reading  at  the  top 
of  a  page,  •'  Scene,  a  Garden  ;"  we  do  not  imagine  ourselves 


ON    SHAKSPEARES    TRAGEDIES.  363 

there,  but  we  readily  admit  the  imitation  of  familiar  objects. 
Hut  to  think  by  the  help  of  painted  trees  and  taverns,  which 
avc  know  to  be  painted,  to  transport  our  minds  to  l'rospero, 
and  bis  island,  and  bis  lonely  cell  ;*  or,  by  the  aid  of  a  fiddle, 
dexterously  thrown  in,  in  an  interval  of  Bpeaking,  to  make  us 
believe  that  we  hear  those  supernatural  noises  of  which  the 
isle  was  full :  the  Orrery  lecturer  at  the  Haymarket  might  as 
well  hope,  by  his  musical  glasses  cleverly  stationed  out  of  sight 
behind  his  apparatus,  to  make  us  believe  that  we  do  indeed  hear 
the  crystal  spheres  ring  out  that  chime,  which,  if  it  were  to  111- 
wrap  our  fancy  long,  Milton  thinks, 

"  Time  would  run  back  and  fetch  the  age  of  gold, 
And  speckled  Vanity 
Would  sicken  soon  and  die, 
And  leprous  Sin  would  melt  from  earthly  mould  ; 
Yea,  Hell  itself  would  pass  away, 
And  leave  its  dolorous  mansions  to  the  peering  day." 

The  Garden  of  Eden,  with  our  first  parents  in  it,  is  not  more 
impossible  to  be  shown  on  a  stage  than  the  enchanted  isle, 
with  its  no  less  interesting  and  innocent  first  settlers. 

The  subject  of  scenery  is  closely  connected  with  that  of 
dresses,  which  are  so  anxiously  attended  to  on  our  stage.  I 
remember  the  last  time  I  saw  Macbeth  played,  the  discrepancy 
I  felt  at  the  changes  of  garment  which  he  varied,  the  shiftings 
and  reshiftings,  like  a  Romish  priest  at  mass.  The  luxury 
of  stage  improvements  and  the  importunity  of  the  public  eye 
require  this.  The  coronation  robe  of  the  Scottish  monarch  was 
fairly  a  counterpart  to  that  which  our  king  wears  when  he  goes 
to  the  parliament  house,  just  so  full  and  cumbersome,  and  set 
out  with  ermine  and  pearls.  And  if  things  must  be  represented, 
I  see  not  what  to  find  fault  with  in  this.  But  in  reading,  what 
robe  are  we  conscious  of?  Some  dim  images  of  royalty — a 
crown,  a  sceptre,  may  float  before  our  eyes,  but  who  shall  de- 
scribe the  fashion  of  it  1  Do  we  see  in  our  mind's  eye  what 
Webb  or  any  other  robemaker  could  pattern  ?  This  is  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  imitating  everything,  to  make  all 
things  natural.  Whereas  the  reading  of  a  tragedy  is  a  fine 
abstraction.  It  presents  to  the  fancy  just  so  much  of  external 
appearances  as  to  make  us  feel  that  we  are  among  flesh  and 
blood,  while  by  far  the  greater  and  better  part  of  our  imagina- 
tion is  employed  upon  the  thoughts  and  internal  machinery  of 
the  character.  But  in  acting,  scenery,  dress,  the  most  con- 
temptible things  call  upon  us  to  judge  of  their  naturalness. 

*  It  will  be  said  these  things  are  done  in  pictures.  Uut  pictures  and  scenes 
are  very  different  things.  Painting  is  a  world  of  itself,  but  m  Bceoe-painting 
there  is  the  attempt  to  deceive  ;  and  there  is  the  discordancy,  never  to  be  got 
over,  between  painted  scenes  and  real  people. 

Q2 


364       on  shakspeare's  tragedies. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  no  bad  similitude  to  liken  the  pleasure 
which  we  take  in  seeing  one  of  these  fine  plays  acted,  com- 
pared with  that  quiet  delight  which  we  find  in  the  reading  of  it, 
to  the  different  feelings  with  which  a  reviewer,  and  a  man  that 
is  not  a  reviewer,  reads  a  fine  poem.  The  accursed  critical 
habit,  the  being  called  upon  to  judge  and  pronounce,  must 
make  it  quite  a  different  thing  to  the  former.  In  seeing  these 
plays  acted,  we  are  affected  just  as  judges.  When  Hamlet 
compares  the  two  pictures  of  Gertrude's  first  and  second 
husband,  who  wants  to  see  the  pictures  ?  But  in  the  acting, 
a  miniature  must  be  lugged  out ;  which  we  know  not  to  be  the 
picture,  but  only  to  show  how  finely  a  miniature  may  be  rep- 
resented. This  showing  of  everything  levels  all  things ;  it 
makes  tricks,  bows,  and  courtesies  of  importance.  Mrs.  S. 
never  got  more  fame  by  anything  than  by  the  manner  in 
which  she  dismisses  the  guests  in  the  banquet-scene  in  Mac- 
beth ;  it  is  as  much  remembered  as  any  of  her  thrilling  tones 
or  impressive  looks.  But  does  such  a  trifle  as  this  enter  into 
the  imaginations  of  the  readers  of  that  wild  and  wonderful 
scene  ?  Does  not  the  mind  dismiss  the  feasters  as  rapidly  as 
it  can  ?  Does  it  care  about  the  gracefulness  of  the  doing  it  1 
But  by  acting,  and  judging  of  acting,  all  these  nonessentials 
are  raised  into  an  importance  injurious  to  the  main  interest  of 
the  play. 

I  have  confined  my  observations  to  the  tragic  parts  of  Shaks- 
peare.  It  would  be  no  very  difficult  task  to  extend  the  in- 
quiry to  his  comedies,  and  to  show  why  Falstaff,  Shallow,  Sir 
Hugh  Evans,  and  the  rest,  are  equally  incompatible  with  stage 
representation.  The  length  to  which  this  essay  has  run  will 
make  it,  I  am  afraid,  sufficiently  distasteful  to  the  amateurs  of 
the  theatre,  without  going  any  deeper  into  the  subject  at 
Dresent. 


CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS.  305 


CHARACTERS  OF  DRAMATIC  WRITERS 

CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SHAKSPEARE. 

When  I  selected  for  publication,  in  1808,  Specimens  of 
English  Dramatic  Poets  who  lived  about  the  time  of  Shaks- 
peare,  the  kind  of  extracts  which  I  was  anxious  to  give  were 
not  so  much  passages  of  wit  and  humour,  though  the  old  plays 
are  rich  in  such,  as  scenes  of  passions  sometimes  of  the 
deepest  quality,  interesting  situations,  serious  descriptions, 
that  which  is  more  nearly  allied  to  poetry  than  to  wit,  and  to 
tragic  rather  than  to  comic  poetry.  The  plays  which  I  made 
choice  of  were,  with  few  exceptions,  such  as  treat  of  human 
life  and  manners,  rather  than  masks  and  Arcadian  pastorals, 
with  their  train  of  abstractions,  unimpassioned  deities,  pas- 
sionate mortals — Claius,  and  Medorus,  and  Amintas,  and 
Amarillis.  My  leading  design  was  to  illustrate  what  may  be 
called  the  moral  sense  of  our  ancestors.  To  show  in  what 
manner  they  felt,  when  they  placed  themselves  by  the  power 
of  imagination  in  trying  circumstances,  in  the  conflicts  of  duty 
and  passion,  or  the  strife  of  contending  duties  ;  what  sort  of 
loves  and  enmities  theirs  were  ;  how  their  griefs  were  tem- 
pered, and  their  full-swollen  joys  abated  :  how  much  of  Shaks- 
peare  shines  in  the  great  men  his  contemporaries,  and  how  far 
in  his  divine  mind  and  manners  he  surpassed  them  and  all 
mankind.  I  was  also  desirous  to  bring  together  some  of  the 
most  admired  scenes  of  Fletcher  and  Massinger,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  world  the  only  dramatic  poets  of  that  age  enti- 
tled to  be  considered  after  Shakspeare,  and,  by  exhibiting 
them  in  the  same  volume  with  the  more  impressive  scenes  of 
old  Marlowe,  Hey  wood,  Toumeur,  Wrebster,  Ford,  and  others, 
to  show  what  we  had  slighted,  while  beyond  all  proportion 
we  had  been  crying  up  one  or  two  favourite  names.  From 
the  desultory  criticisms  which  accompanied  that  publication, 
I  have  selected  a  few  which  I  thought  would  best  stand  by 
themselves,  as  requiring  least  immediate  reference  to  the  play 
or  passage  by  which  they  were  suggested. 

CHRISTOPHER    MARLOWE. 

Lust's  Dominion,  or  the  Lascivious  Queen. — This  tragedy  is 
in  King  Cambyses'  vein  ;  rape,  and  murder,  and  superlatives  ; 
31* 


366  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

Ct  huffing  braggart  puffed  lines,"  such  as  the  play-writers  ante- 
rior to  Shakspeare  are  full  of,  and  Pistol  but  coldly  imitates. 

Tamburlaine  the  Great,  or  the  Scythian  Shepherd. — The 
lunes  of  Tamburlaine  are  perfect  midsummer  madness.  Neb- 
uchadnezzar's are  mere  modest  pretensions  compared  with  the 
thundering  vaunts  of  this  Scythian  shepherd.  He  comes  in 
drawn  by  conquered  kings,  and  reproaches  these  pampered 
jades  of  Asia  that  they  can  draw  but  twenty  miles  a  day. 
Till  I  saw  this  passage  with  my  own  eyes,  1  never  believed 
that  it  was  anything  more  than  a  pleasant  burlesque  of  mine 
ancient's.  But  I  can  assure  my  readers  that  it  is  soberly  set 
down  in  a  play,  which  their  ancestors  took  to  be  serious. 

Edward  the  Second. — In  a  very  different  style  from  mighty 
Tamburlaine  is  the  tragedy  of  Edward  the  Second.  The  re- 
luctant pangs  of  abdicating  royalty  in  Edward  furnished  hints, 
which  Shakspeare  scarcely  improved  in  his  Richard  the 
Second ;  and  the  death-scene  of  Marlowe's  king  moves  pity 
and  terror  beyond  any  scene,  ancient  or  modern,  with  which  I 
am  acquainted. 

The  Rich  Jew  of  Malta. — Marlowe's  Jew  does  not  approach 
so  near  to  Shakspeare's  as  his  Edward  the  Second  does  to 
Richard  the  Second.  Barabas  is  a  mere  monster  brought  in 
with  a  large  painted  nose  to  please  the  rabble.  He  kills  in 
sport,  poisons  whole  nunneries,  invents  infernal  machines.  He 
is  just  such  an  exhibition  as  a  century  or  two  earlier  might 
have  been  played  before  the  Londoners  "  by  the  royal  com- 
mand," when  a  general  pillage  and  massacre  of  the  Hebrews 
had  been  previously  resolved  on  in  the  cabinet.  It  is  curious 
to  see  a  superstition  wearing  out.  The  idea  of  a  Jew,  which 
our  pious  ancestors  contemplated  with  so  much  horror,  has 
nothing  in  it  now  revolting.  We  have  tamed  the  claws  of  the 
beast,  and  pared  its  nails,  and  now  we  take  it  to  our  arms, 
fondle  it,  write  plays  to  flatter  it ;  it  is  visited  by  princes,  af- 
fects a  taste,  patronises  the  arts,  and  is  the  only  liberal  and 
gentleman-like  thing  in  Christendom. 

Doctor  Faustits. — The  growing  horrors  of  Faustus's  last 
scene  are  awfully  marked  by  the  hours  and  half  hours  as  ihey 
expire,  and  bring  him  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  exactment  of 
his  dire  compact.  It  is  indeed  an  agony  and  a  fearful  col- 
luetation.  Marlowe  is  said  to  have  been  tainted  with  atheist- 
ical positions,  to  have  denied  CJod  and  the  Trinity.  To  such 
a  genius  tin;  history  of  Faustus  must  have  been  delectable 
Food  :  to  wander  in  the  fields  where  curiosity  is  forbidden  to 
go,  to  approach  the  dark  gulf  near  enough  to  look  in,  to  be 
busied  in  speculations  which  are  the  rottenest  part  of  the  core 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SUAKSPEARE.  367 

oi  the  fruit  that  fell  from  the  tree  of  knowledge.*  Barabas 
the  Jew  and  Faustus  the  conjurer  are  offsprings  of  a  mind 
which  ;it  least  delighted  to  dallv  with  interdicted  subjects. 
They  both  talk  a  language  which  a  believer  would  have  been 
tender  of  putting  into  the  mouth  of  a  character,  though  but  in 
fiction.  But  the  holiest  minds  have  souk  times  not  thought  it 
reprehensible  to  counterfeit  impiety  in  the  person  of  another, 
to  bring  Vice  upon  the  stage  speaking  her  own  dialect ;  and, 
themselves  being  armed  with  an  unction  of  self-confident  im- 
punity, have  not  scrupled  to  handle  and  touch  that  familiarly, 
which  would  be  death  to  others.  Milton  in  the  person  of 
Satan  has  started  speculations  hardier  than  any  which  the 
feeble  armory  of  the  atheist  ever  furnished  -,  and  the  precise, 
straight-laced  Richardson  has  strengthened  Vice,  from  the 
mouth  of  Lovelace,  with  entangling  sophistries  and  abstruse 
pleas  against  her  adversary  Virtue,  which  Sedley,  Villiers,  and 
Rochester  wanted  depth  of  libertinism  enough  to  have  in- 
vented. 

THOMAS  DECKER. 

Old  Fortwiatus. — The  humour  of  a  frantic  lover  in  the 
scene  where  Orleans  to  his  friend  Galloway  defends  the  pas- 
sion with  which  himself,  being  a  prisoner  in  the  English  king's 
court,  is  enamoured  to  phrensy  of  the  king's  daughter  Agri- 
pyna,  is  done  to  the  life.  Orleans  is  as  passionate  an  inamo- 
rato as  any  which  Shakspeare  ever  drew.  He  is  just  such 
another  adept  in  Love's  reasons.  The  sober  people  of  the 
world  are  with  him, 

"  A  swarm  of  fools 
Crowding  together  to  be  counted  wise." 

He  talks  ';  pure  Biron  and  Romeo."  he  is  almost  as  poetical 
as  they,  quite  as  philosophical,  only  a  little  madder.  After  all, 
Love's  secretaries  are  a  reason  unto  themselves.  We  have 
gone  retrograde  to  the  noble  heresy,  since  the  days  when  Sid- 
ney proselyted  our  nation  to  this  mixed  health  and  disease  ; 
the  kindliest  symptom,  yet  the  most  alarming  crisis  in  the 
ticklish  state  of  youth  ;  the  nourisher  and  the  destroyer  of 
hopeful  wits  ;  the  mother  of  twin  births,  wisdom  and  folly, 
valour  and  weakness  ;  the  servitude  above  freedom  ;  the  gen- 
tle mind's  religion  ;  the  liberal  superstition. 

The  Honest  Whore. — There  is  in  the  second  part  of  this 

*  "Error,  entering  into  the  world  with  sin  among  us  poor  Adamites,  may 
be  said  to  spring  from  the  tree  of  knowledge  itself,  and  from  the  rotten  kernels 
of  that  fatal  apple." — Howell's  Letters. 


368  CHARACTERS  OF    DRAMATIC   WRITERS 

play,  where  Bellafront,  a  reclaimed  harlot,  recounts  some  of 
the  miseries  of  her  profession,  a  simple  picture  of  honour  and 
shame,  contrasted  without  violence,  and  expressed  without 
immodesty,  which  is  worth  all  the  strong  lines  against  the  har- 
lot's profession,  with  which  both  parts  of  this  play  are  offen- 
sively crowded.  A  satirist  is  always  to  be  suspected,  who,  to 
make  vice  odious,  dwells  upon  all  its  acts  and  minutest  cir- 
cumstances with  a  sort  of  relish  and  retrospective  fondness. 
But  so  near  are  the  boundaries  of  panegyric  and  invective, 
that  a  worn-out  sinner  is  sometimes  found  to  make  the  best 
declaimer  against  sin.  The  same  high-seasoned  descriptions 
Avhich,  in  his  unregenerate  state,  served  but  to  inflame  his  ap- 
petites, in  his  new  province  of  a  moralist  will  serve  him,  a 
little  turned,  to  expose  the  enormity  of  those  appetites  in  other 
men.  When  Cervantes  with  such  proficiency  of  fondness 
dwells  upon  the  don's  library,  who  sees  not  that  he  has  been 
a  great  reader  of  books  of  knight-errantry — perhaps  was  at 
some  time  of  his  life  in  danger  of  falling  into  those  very  ex- 
travagances which  he  ridiculed  so  happily  in  his  hero  ? 

JOHN    MARSTON. 

Antonio  and  Mcllida. — The  situation  of  Andrugio  and  Lu- 
cio,  in  the  first  part  of  this  tragedy,  where  Andrugio,  duke  of 
Genoa,  banished  his  country,  with  the  loss  of  a  son  supposed 
drowned,  is  cast  upon  the  territory  of  his  mortal  enemy,  the 
Duke  of  Venice,  with  no  attendants  but  Lucio,  an  old  noble- 
man, and  a  page — resembles  that  of  Lear  and  Kent,  in  that 
king's  distresses.  Andrugio,  like  Lear,  manifests  a  king-like 
impatience,  a  turbulent  greatness,  an  affected  resignation. 
The  enemies  which  he  enters  lists  to  combat,  "  Despair,  and 
mighty  Grief,  and  sharp  Impatience,"  and  the  forces  which  he 
brings  to  vanquish  them,  "  cornets  of  horse,"  Sic,  are  in  the 
boldest  style  of  allegory.  They  are  such  a  "  race  of  mourn- 
ers" as  the  "  infection  of  sorrows  loud"  in  the  intellect  might 
beget  on  some  "  pregnant  cloud"  in  the  imagination.  The 
prologue  to  the  second  part,  for  its  passionate  earnestness,  and 
for  the  tragic  note  of  preparation  which  it  sounds,  might  have 
preceded  one  of  those  old  tales  of  Thebes  or  Pelop's  line, 
which  Milton  has  so  highly  commended,  as  free  from  the  com- 
mon error  of  the  poets  in  his  day,  of"  intermixing  comic  stuff 
with  tragic  sadness  and  gravity,  brought  in  without  discretion 
corruptly  to  gratify  the  people."  It  is  as  solemn  a  preparative 
as  the  "  warning  voice  which  he  who  saw  the  Apocalypse 
heard  cry." 

What    You    Will. — Oh,  I  shaU  ?ie,er  forget  how   he   went 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SHAKSPEARE.  3(39 

clothed.  Act  1,  scene  1. — To  judge  of  the  liberality  of  these 
notions  of  dress,  we  must  advert  to  the  days  of  Clresham,  and 
i lie  consternation  which  a  phenomenon  habited  like  the  mer- 
chant here  described  would  have  excited  among  the  flat  round 
caps  and  cloth  stockings  upon  change,  when  those  "original 
arguments  or  tokens  of  a  citizen's  vocation  were  in  fashion, 
not  more  for  thrift  and  usefulness  than  for  distinction  and 
grace."  The  blank  uniformity  to  which  all  professional  dis- 
tinctions in  apparel  have  been  long  hastening,  is  one  instance 
of  the  decay  of  symbols  among  us,  which,  whether  it  has 
contributed  or  not  to  make  us  a  more  intellectual,  has  cer- 
tainly made  us  a  less  imaginative  people.  Shakspeare  knew 
the  force  of  signs  :  a  "  malignant  and  a  turban'd  Turk.*' 
This  "  meal-cap  miller,"  says  the  author  of  God's  Revenge 
against  .Murder,  to  express  his  indignation  at  an  atrocious 
outrage  committed  by  the  miller  Pierot  upon  the  person  of 
the  fair  Marieta. 

AUTHOR    UNKNOWN. 

The  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton. — The  scene  in  this  delight- 
ful comedy,  in  which  Jerningham,  "  with  the  true  feeling  of  a 
zealous  friend,"  touches  the  griefs  of  Mounchensey,  seems 
written  to  make  the  reader  happy.  Few  of  our  dramatists  or 
novelists  have  attended  enough  to  this.  They  torture  and 
wound  us  abundantly.  They  are  economists  only  in  delight. 
Nothing  can  be  finer,  more  gentleman-like,  and  nobler,  than 
the  conversation  and  compliments  of  these  young  men.  How 
delicious  is  Raymond  Mounchensey's  forgetting,  in  his  fears, 
that  Jerningham  has  a  "Saint  in  Essex;"  and  how  sweetly 
his  friend  reminds  him !  I  wish  it  could  be  ascertained, 
which  there  is  some  grounds  for  believing,  that  Michael 
Drayton  was  the  author  of  this  piece.  It  would  add  a  worthy 
appendage  to  the  renown  of  that  panegyrist  of  my  native 
earth ;  who  has  gone  over  her  soil,  in  his  Polyolbion,  with 
the  fidelity  of  a  herald  and  the  painful  love  of  a  son  ;  who 
has  not  left  a  rivulet,  so  narrow  that  it  may  be  stepped  over, 
without  honourable  mention ;  and  has  animated  hills  and 
streams  with  life  and  passion  beyond  the  dreams  of  old  my- 
thology. 

THOMAS    HEYWOOD. 

-4.  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness. — Heywood  is  a  sort  of 
prose  Shakspeafe.  His  scenes  are  to  the  full  as  natural  and 
affecting.     Hut  we  miss  the  puct,  that  which  in  Shakspeare 


370  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

always  appears  out  and  above  the  surface  of  the  nature. 
Heywood'g  characters,  in  this  play,  for  instance,  his  country 
gentlemen,  &c,  are  exactly  what  we  see,  but  of  the  best 
kind  of  what  we  see  in  life.  Shakspeare  makes  us  believe, 
while  we  are  among  his  lovely  creations,  that  they  are  no- 
thing but  what  we  are  familiar  with,  as  in  dreams  new  things 
seem  old  ;  but  we  awake,  and  sigh  for  the  difference. 

The  English  Traveller. — Heywood's  preface  to  this  play 
is  interesting,  as  it  shows  the  heroic  indifference  about  the 
opinion  of  posterity  which  some  of  these  great  writers  seem 
to  have  felt.  There  is  a  magnanimity  in  authorship  as  in 
everything  else.  His  ambition  seems  to  have  been  confined 
to  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  players  speak  his  lines  while 
he  lived.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  contemplated  the 
possibility  of  being  read  by  after  ages.  What  a  slender  pit- 
tance of  fame  was  motive  sufficient  to  the  production  of  such 
plays  as  the  English  Traveller,  the  Challenge  for  Beauty, 
and  the  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness !  Posterity  is  bound 
to  take  care  that  a  writer  loses  nothing  by  such  a  noble 
modesty. 

THOMAS    MIDDLETON    AND    WILLIAM    ROWLEY. 

A  Fair  Quarrel. — The  insipid  levelling  morality  to  which 
the  modern  stage  is  tied  down,  would  not  admit  of  such  ad- 
mirable passions  as  these  scenes  are  filled  with.  A  Puritani- 
cal obtuseness  of  sentiment,  a  stupid  infantile  goodness,  is 
creeping  among  us,  instead  of  the  vigorous  passions,  and 
virtues  clad  in  flesh  and  blood,  with  which  the  old  dramatists 
present  us.  Those  noble  and  liberal  casuists  could  discern 
in  the  differences,  the  quarrels,  the  animosities  of  men,  a 
beauty  and  truth  of  moral  feeling,  no  less  than  in  the  ever- 
lastingly inculcated  duties  of  forgiveness  and  atonement. 
With  us,  all  is  hypocritical  meekness.  A  reconciliation- 
scene,  be  the  occasion  never  so  absurd,  never  fails  of  ap- 
plause. Our  audiences  come  to  the  theatre  to  be  compli- 
mented on  their  goodness.  They  compare  notes  with  the 
amiable  characters  in  the  play,  and  find  a  wonderful  sympathy 
of  disposition  between  them.  We  have  a  common  stock  of 
dramatic  morality,  out  of  which  a  writer  may  he  supplied 
without  the  trouble  of  copying  it  from  originals  within  his 
own  breast.  To  know  the  boundaries  of  honour,  to  be  ju- 
diciously valiant,  to  have  a  temperance  which  shall  beget  a 
smoothness  in  the  angry  swellings  of  youth,  to  esteem  life  as 
nothing  When  the  sacred  reputation  of  a  parent  is  to  he  defend- 
ed, yet  to  shake  and  tremble  under   a  pious  cowardice  when 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SHAKSPEARE.  371 

that  ark  of  an  honest  confidence  is  found  to  be  frail  and  tot- 
tering, to  feel  the  true  blows  of  a  real  disgrace  blunting  that 
sword  which  the  imaginary  strokes  of  a  supposed  false  im- 
putation had  put  so  keen  an  edge  upon  but  lately  :  to  do  or 
to  imagine  this  done  in  a  feigned  story,  asks  something  more 
of  a  moral  sense,  somewhat  a  greater  delicacy  of  perception 
in  questions  of  right  and  wrong,  than  goes  to  the  writing  of 
two  or  three  hackneyed  sentences  about  the  laws  of  honour 
as  opposed  to  the  laws  of  the  land,  or  a  commonplace  against 
duelling.  Yet  such  things  would  stand  a  writer  nowadays 
in  far  better  stead  than  Captain  Agar  and  his  conscientious 
honour ;  and  he  would  be  considered  as  a  far  better  teacher 
of  morality  than  old  Rowley  or  Middleton,  if  they  were 
living. 

WILLIAM   ROWLEY. 

A  New  Wonder ;  a  Woman  Never  Vexed. — The  old  play- 
writers  are  distinguished  by  an  honest  boldness  of  exhibition  ; 
they  show  everything  without  being  ashamed.  If  a  reverse 
in  fortune  is  to  be  exhibited,  they  fairly  bring  us  to  the  pris- 
on-grate and  the  alms-basket.  A  poor  man  on  our  stage  is 
always  a  gentleman  ;  he  may  be  known  by  a  peculiar  neatness 
of  apparel,  and  by  wearing  black.  Our  delicacy,  in  fact,  for- 
bids the  dramatizing  of  distress  at  all.  It  is  never  shown  in 
its  essential  properties  ;  it  appears  but  as  the  adjunct  of  some 
virtue,  as  something  which  is  to  be  relieved,  from  the  appro- 
bation of  which  relief  the  spectators  are  to  derive  a  certain 
soothing  of  self-referred  satisfaction.  We  turn  away  from  the 
real  essences  of  things  to  hunt  after  their  relative  shadows, 
moral  duties ;  whereas,  if  the  truth  of  things  were  fairly 
represented,  the  relative  duties  might  be  safely  trusted  to 
themselves,  and  moral  philosophy  lose  the  name  of  a  science. 

THOMAS    MIDDLETON. 

The  Witch. — Though  some  resemblance  may  be  traced 
between  the  charms  in  Macbeth  and  the  incantations  in  this 
play,  which  is  supposed  to  have  preceded  it,  this  coincidence 
will  not  detract  much  from  the  originality  of  Shakspeare. 
His  witches  are  distinguished  from  the  witches  oT  Middleton 
by  essential  differences.  These  are  creatures  to  whom  man 
or  woman,  plotting  some  dire  mischief,  might  resort  for  occa- 
sional consultation.  Those  originate  deeds  of  blood,  and 
begin  bad  impulses  to  men.  From  the  moment  that  their 
3   first   meet    with  Macbeth's   he    is   spell-bound.      That 


372  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

meeting  sways  his  destiny.  He  can  never  break  the  fasci- 
nation. The3e  witches  can  hurt  the  body,  those  have  power 
over  the  soul.  Hecate,  in  Middleton,  has  a  son,  a  low  buffoon : 
the  hags  of  Shakspeare  have  neither  child  of  their  own,  nor 
seem  to  be  descended  from  any  parent.  They  are  foul  anom- 
alies, of  whom  we  know  not  whence  they  are  sprung,  nor 
whether  they  have  beginning  or  ending.  As  they  are  without 
human  passions,  so  they  seem  to  be  without  human  relations. 
They  come  with  thunder  and  lightning,  and  vanish  to  airy 
m,usic.  This  is  all  we  know  of  them.  Except  Hecate, 
they  have  no  names;  which  heightens  their  mysteriousness. 
The  names  and  some  of  the  properties  which  the  other 
author  has  given  to  his  hags  excite  smiles.  The  Weird  Sis- 
ters are  serious  things.  Their  presence  cannot  coexist  with 
mirth.  But,  in  a  lesser  degree,  the  witches  of  Middleton  are 
fine  creations.  Their  power,  too,  is,  in  some  measure,  over 
the  mind.  They  raise  jars,  jealousies,  strifes,  "  like  a  thick 
scurf"  over  life. 

WILLIAM    ROWLEY THOMAS    DECKER JOHN    FORD,  &C 

The  Witch  of  "Edmonton. — Mother  Sawyer,  in  this  wild 
play,  differs  from  the  hags  of  both  Middleton  and  Shakspeare. 
She  is  the  plain  traditional  old  woman  witch  of  our  ancestors  ; 
poor,  deformed,  and  ignorant;  the  terror  of  villages,  herself 
amenable  to  a  justice.  That  should  be  a  hardy  sheriff,  with 
the  power  of  the  county  at  his  heels,  that  would  lay  hands 
upon  the  Weird  Sisters.  They  are  of  another  jurisdiction. 
But,  upon  the  common  and  received  opinion,  the  author  (or 
authors)  have  ingrafted  strong  fancy.  There  is  something 
frightfully  earnest  in  her  invocations  to  the  familiar. 

CYRIL    TOURNEUR. 

The  Revenger's  Tragedy. — The  reality  and  life  of  the  dia- 
logue in  which  Vindici  and  Hippolito  first  tempt  their  mother, 
and  then  threaten  her  with  death  for  consenting  to  the  dis- 
honour of  their  sister,  passes  any  scenical  illusion  I  ever  felt. 
I  never  read  it,  but  my  cars  tingle,  and  1  feel  a  hot  blush  over- 
spread my  cheeks,  as  if  I  were  presently  about  to  proclaim 
such  malefactions  of  myself  as  the  brothers  here  rebuke  in 
their  unnatural  parent,  in  words  more  keen  and  dagger-like 
than  those  which  Hamlet  speaks  to  his  mother.  Such  power 
has  the  passion  of  shame  truly  personated,  not.  only  to  strike 
guilty  creatures  unto  the  soul,  but  to  "  appal"  even  those  that 
are  "  free." 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SIIAKSPEARE.  373 


JOHN    WEBSTER. 

The  Duchess  of '  Mulfy. — All  the  several  parts  of  the  dread- 
ful apparatus  with  which  the  death  of  the  duchess  is  ushered 
in,  the  waxen  images  which  counterfeit  death,  the  wild  mask 
of  madmen,  the  toinbmaker,  the  bellman,  the  living  person's 
dirge,  the  mortification  by  degrees — are  not  more  remote  from 
the  conceptions  of  ordinary  vengeance,  than  the  strange  char- 
acter of  suffering  which  they  seem  to  bring  upon  their  victim 
is  out  of  the  imagination  of  ordinary  poets.  As  they  are  not 
like  inflictions  of  this  life,  so  her  language  seems  not  of  this 
world.  She  has  lived  among  horrors  till  she  is  become  "  na- 
tive and  endowed  unto  that  element."  She  speaks  the  dialect 
of  despair  ;  her  tongue  has  a  smatch  of  Tartarus  and  the  souls 
in  bale.  To  move  a  horror  skilfully,  to  touch  a  soul  to  the 
quick,  to  lay  upon  fear  as  much  as  it  can  bear,  to  wean  and 
weary  a  life  till  it  is  ready  to  drop,  and  then  step  in  with 
mortal  instruments  to  take  its  last  forfeit :  this  only  a  Web- 
ster can  do.  Inferior  geniuses  may  *'  upon  horror's  head 
horrors  accumulate,"  but  they  cannot  do  this.  They  mistake 
quantity  for  quality  ;  they  "  terrify  babes  with  painted  devils  ;" 
but  they  know  not  how  a  soul  is  to  be  moved.  Their  terrors 
want  dignity,  their  afTrightments  are  without  decorum. 

The  White  Devil,  or  Vittoria  Coromhona. — This  white  devil 
of  Italy  sets  off  a  bad  cause  so  speciously,  and  pleads  with 
such  an  innocent-resembling  boldness,  that  we  seem  to  see 
that  matchless  beauty  of  her  face  which  inspires  such  gay 
confidence  into  her,  and  are  ready  to  expect,  when  she  has 
done  her  pleadings,  that  her  very  judges,  her  accusers,  the 
grave  ambassadors  who  sit  as  spectators,  and  all  the  court, 
will  rise  and  make  proffer  to  defend  her  in  spite  of  the  utmost 
conviction  of  her  guilt ;  as  the  shepherds  in  Don  Quixote 
make  profler  to  follow  the  beautiful  shepherdess  Marcela, 
"  without  making  any  profit  of  her  manifest  resolution  made 
there  in  their  hearing." 

"  So  sweet  and  lovely  does  she  make  the  shame. 
Which,  like  a  canker  in  the  fragrant  rose, 
Does  spot  the  beauty  of  her  budding  name  !" 

I  never  saw  anything  like  the  funeral  dirge  in  this  play  for 
the  death  of  Marcello,  except  the  ditty  which  reminds  Ferdi- 
nand of  his  drowned  father,  in  the  Tempest.  As  that  is  of  the 
water,  watery;  so  this  is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Both  have 
that  intenseness  of  feeling  which  seems  to  resolve  itself  into 
the  element  which  it  contemplates. 

Jn  a  note  on  the  Spanish  Tragedy  in  the  Specimens,  I  have 
32 


374  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

said  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  undoubted  plays  of  Jonson 
Avhich  would  authorize  us  to  suppose  that  he  could  have  sup- 
plied the  additions  to  Hieronymo.  I  suspected  the  agency 
of  some  more  potent  spirit.  I  thought  that  Webster  might 
have  furnished  them.  They  seemed  full  of  that  wild,  solemn, 
preternatural  cast  of  grief  which  bewilders  us  in  the  Duchess 
of  Malfy.  On  second  consideration,  I  think  this  a  hasty  crit- 
icism. They  are  more  like  the  overflowing  griefs  and  talk- 
ing distraction  of  Titus  Andronicus.  The  sorrows  of  the 
duchess  set  inward  ;  if  she  talks,  it  is  little  more  than  soliloquy 
imitating  conversation  in  a  kind  of  bravery. 

JOHN    FORD. 

The  Broken  Heart. — I  do  not  know  where  to  find,  in  any 
play,  a  catastrophe  so  grand,  so  solemn,  and  so  surprising  as 
in  this.  This  is,  indeed,  according  to  Milton,  to  describe  high 
passions  and  high  actions.  The  fortitude  of  the  Spartan  boy, 
who  let  a  beast  gnaw  out  his  bowels  till  he  died  without  ex- 
pressing a  groan,  is  a  faint  bodily  image  of  this  dilaceration 
of  the  spirit  and  exenteration  of  the  inmost  mind,  which  Ca- 
lantha,  with  a  holy  violence  against  her  nature,  keeps  closely 
covered,  till  the  last  duties  of  a  wife  and  a  queen  are  fulfilled. 
Stories  of  martyrdom  are  but  of  chains  and  the  stake  ;  a  little 
bodily  suffering.     These  torments 

"  On  the  purest  spirits  prey, 
As  on  entrails,  joints,  and  limbs, 
With  answerable  pains,  but  more  intense." 

"What  a  noble  thing  is  the  soul  in  its  strengths  and  in  its  weak 
nesses !  Who  would  be  less  weak  than  Calantha  ?  Who 
can  be  so  strong?  The  expression  of  this  transcendent  scene 
almost  bears  us  in  imagination  to  Calvary  and  the  cross  ;  and 
we  seem  to  perceive  some  analogy  between  the  scenical  suf- 
ferings which  we  are  here  contemplating  and  the  real  agonies 
of  that  final  completion  to  which  we  dare  no  more  than  hint  a 
reference.  Ford  was  of  the  first  order  of  poets.  He  sought 
for  sublimity,  not  by  parcels,  in  metaphors,  or  visible  images, 
but  directly  where  she  has  her  full  residence  in  the  heart  of 
man ;  in  the  actions  and  sufferings  of  the  greatest  minds. 
There  is  a  grandeur  of  the  soul  above  mountains,  seas,  and 
the  (dements.  Even  in  the  poor,  perverted  reason  of  Giovanni 
and  Annabella,  in  the  play*  which  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
modern  collection  of  the  works  of  this  author,  we  discern 
traces  of  that  fiery  particle,  which,  in  the   irregular  starting 

*  'Tis  pi!y  t>he  is  a  whore. 


CONTEMPORARY-    WITH    SHAKSPEARE.  375 

from  out  the  road  of  beaten  action,  discovers  something  of  a 
right  line  even  in  obliquity,  and  shows  hints  of  an  trnproveable 
greatness  in  the  lowest  descents  and  degradations  of  our  nature. 

FULKE  OREVILLE,  LORD  BROOKE. 

Alaham,  Mustapha. — The  two  tragedies  of  Lord  Brooke, 
printed  among  his  poems,  might  with  more  propriety  have 
been  termed  political  treatises  than  plays.  Their  author  has 
strangely  contrived  to  make  passion,  character,  and  interest  of 
the  highest  order  subservient  to  the  expression  of  state  dog- 
mas and  mysteries.  He  is  nine  parts  Machiavel  and  Tacitus, 
for  one  part  Sophocles  or  Seneca.  In  this  writer's  estimate 
of  the  powers  of  the  mind,  the  understanding  must  have  held 
a  most  tyrannical  pre-eminence.  Whether  we  look  into  his 
plays,  or  his  most  passionate  love-poems,  we  shall  find  all 
frozen  and  made  rigid  with  intellect.  The  finest  movements 
of  the  human  heart,  the  utmost  grandeur  of  which  the  soul  is 
capable,  are  essentially  comprised  in  the  actions  and  speeches 
of  Caelica  and  Camena.  Shakspeare,  who  seems  to  have  had 
a  peculiar  delight  in  contemplating  womanly  perfection,  whom, 
for  his  many  sweet  images  of  female  excellence,  all  women 
are  in  an  especial  manner  bound  to  love,  has  not  raised  the 
ideal  of  the  female  character  higher  than  Lord  Brooke,  in 
these  two  women,  has  done.  But  it  requires  a  study  equiva 
lent  to  the  learning  of  a  new  language  to  understand  their 
meaning  when  they  speak.     It  is,  indeed,  hard  to  hit: 

"  Much  like  thy  riddle,  Samsnn,  in  one  day 
Or  seven  though  one  should  musing  sit." 

It  is  as  if  a  being  of  pure  intellect  should  take  upon  him  to 
express  the  emotions  of  our  sensitive  natures.  There  would 
be  all  knowledge,  but  sympathetic  expressions,  would  be 
wanting. 

BEN    JONSON. 

The  Case  is  Altered. — The  passion  for  wealth  has  worn  out 
much  of  its  grossness  in  tract  of  time.  Our  ancestors  cer- 
tainly conceived  of  money  as  able  to  confer  a  distinct  gratifi- 
cation in  itself,  not  considered  simply  ;is  a  symbol  of  wealth. 
The  old  poets,  when  they  introduce  a  miser,  make  him  address 
his  gold  as  his  mistress  ;  as  something  to  be  seen,  felt,  and 
hugged  ;  as  capable  of  satisfying  two  of  the  senses  at  least. 
The  substitution  of  a  thin,  unsatisfying  medium  in  the  place 
of  the  good  old  tangible  metu!.  has  made  avarice  quite  a  Pla- 


376  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

tonic  affection  in  comparison  with  the  seeing,  touching,  and 
handling-pleasures  of  the  old  Chrysophilites.  A  bank-note 
can  no  more  satisfy  the  touch  of  a  true  sensualist  in  this  pas- 
sion, than  Creusa  could  return  her  husband's  embrace  in  the 
shades.  See  the  Cave  of  Mammon  in  Spencer;  Barabas's 
contemplation  of  his  wealth  in  the  Rich  Jew  of  Malta  ;  Luke's 
raptures  in  the  City  Madam  ;  the  idolatry  and  absolute  gold 
worship  of  the  miser  Jaques  in  this  early  comic  produc- 
tion of  Ben  Jonson's.  Above  all,  hear  Guzman,  in  that  ex- 
cellent old  translation  of  the  Spanish  Rogue,  expatiate  on  the 
"  ruddy  cheeks  of  your  golden  ruddocks,  your  Spanish  pisto- 
lets,  your  plump  and  full-faced  Portuguese,  and  your  clear- 
skinned  pieces  of  eight  of  Castile,"  which  he  and  his  fellows, 
the  beggars,  kept  secret  to  themselves,  and  did  privately  en- 
joy in  a  plentiful  manner.  "  For  to  have  them,  to  pay  them 
away,  is  not  to  enjoy  them ;  to  enjoy  them  is  to  have  them 
lying  by  us ;  having  no  other  need  of  them  than  to  use  them 
for  the  clearing  of  the  eyesight,  and  the  comforting  of  our 
senses.  These  we  did  carry  about  with  us,  sewing  them  in 
some  patches  of  our  doublets  near  unto  the  heart,  and  as  close 
to  the  skin  as  we  could  handsomely  quilt  them  in,  holding  them 
to  be  restorative." 

Poetaster. — This  Roman  play  seems  written  to  confute 
those  enemies  of  Ben  in  his  own  days  and  ours,  who  have 
said  that  he  made  a  pedantical  use  of  his  learning.  He  has 
here  revived  the  whole  court  of  Augustus,  by  a  learned  spell. 
We  are  admitted  to  the  society  of  the  illustrious  dead.  Vir- 
gil, Horace,  Ovid,  Tibullus,  converse  in  our  own  tongue  more 
finely  and  poetically  than  they  were  used  to  express  them- 
selves in  their  native  Latin.  Nothing  can  be  imagined  more 
elegant,  refined,  and  court-like  than  the  scenes  between  this 
Louis  the  Fourteenth  of  antiquity  and  his  literati.  The 
whole  essence  and  secret  of  that  kind  of  intercourse  is  con- 
tained therein.  The  economical  liberality  by  which  great- 
ness, seeming  to  waive  some  part  of  its  prerogative,  takes  care 
to  lose  none  of  the  essentials ;  the  prudential  liberties  of  an 
inferior,  which  flatter  by  commanded  boldness  and  sooth  with 
complimentary  sincerity.  These,  and  a  thousand  beautiful 
passages  from  his  New  Inn,  his  Cynthia's  Revels,  and  from 
those  numerous  court-masks  and  entertainments  which  he 
was  in  the  daily  habit  of  furnishing,  might  be  adduced  to 
show  the  poetical  fancy  and  elegance  of  mind  of  the  supposed 
rugged  old  bard. 

Alchymist. — The  judgment  is  perfectly  overwhelmed  by  the 
torrfcnt  of  images,  words,  and  book-knowledge  with  which 
Epicure   Mammon  (act  2,  scene  2)  confounds  and  stuns  his 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SHAKSPEARE.  377 

incredulous  hearer.  They  come  pouring  out  like  the  succes- 
sive falls  of  IS'ilus.  They  ''doubly  redouble  strokes  upon  the 
foe."  Description  outstrides  proof.  We  are  made  to  believe 
effects  before  we  have  testimony  for  their  causes.  If  there 
is  no  one  image  which  attains  the  height  of  the  sublime,  yet 
the  confluence  and  assemblage  of  them  all  produces  a  result 
equal  to  the  grandest  poetry.  The  huge  Xer.van  army  coun- 
tervails against  single  Achilles.  Epicure  Mammon  is  the 
most  determined  offspring  of  its  author.  It  has  the  whole 
"matter  and  copy  of  the  father — eye,  nose,  lip,  the  trick  of 
his  frown."  It  is  just  such  a  swaggerer  as  contemporaries 
have  described  old  lien  to  be.  Meercraft,  Bobadil,  the  Host 
of  the  New  Inn,  have  all  his  image  and  Superscription,  Hut 
Mammon  is  arrogant  pretension  personified.  Sir  Samson  Le- 
gend, in  Love  for  Love,  is  such  another  lying,  overbearing 
character,  but  he  does  not  come  up  to  Epicure  Mammon. 
What  a  "  towering  bravery"  there  is  in  his  sensuality !  he  af- 
fects no  pleasure  under  a  sultan.  It  is  as  if  "  Egypt  and  As- 
syria  strove  in  luxury." 

GEORGE    CHAPMAN. 

Bussy  (TAmbois,  Byron's  Conspiracy,  Byron's  Tragedy, 
Sfc,  <§c. — Webster  has  happily  characterized  the  "  full  and 
heightened  style"  of  Chapman,  who,  of  all  the  English  play- 
writers,  perhaps  approaches  nearest  to  Shakspeare  in  the  de- 
scriptive and  didactic,  in  passages  which  are  less  purely  dra- 
matic. He  could  not  go  out  of  himself,  as  Shakspeare  could 
shift  at  pleasure,  to  inform  and  animate  other  existences,  but 
in  himself  he  had  an  eye  to  perceive  and  a  soul  to  embrace 
all  forms  and  modes  of  being.  He  would  have  made  a  great 
epic  poet,  if  indeed  he  has  not  abundantly  shown  himself 
to  be  one  ;  for  his  Homer  is  not  so  properly  a  translation 
as  the  stories  of  Achilles  and  Ulyssea  rewritten.  The  earn- 
estness and  passion  which  he  has  put  into  every  part  of 
these  poems  would  be  incredible  to  a  reader  of  mere  modem 
translations.  His  almost  Greek  zeal  for  the  glory  of  his  he- 
roes can  only  be  paralleled  by  that  fierce  spirit  of  Hebrew 
bigotry  with  which  Milton,  as  if  personating  one  of  the  zealots 
of  the  old  law,  clothed  himself  when  he  sat  down  to  paint  the 
acts  of  Samson  against  the  uncircumcised.  The  great  obsta- 
cle to  Chapman's  translations  being  read,  is  their  unconquer- 
able quaintness.  He  pours  out  in  the  same  breath  the  most 
just  and  natural,  and  the  most  violent  and  crude  expressions. 
He  seems  to  grasp  at  whatever  words  come  hrst  to  hand  while 
the  enthusiasm  is  upon  him,  as  if  all  other  must  be  inadequate 
82* 


378  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC    WRITERS 

to  the  divine  meaning.  But  passion  (the  all  in  all  in  poetry) 
is  everywhere  present,  raising  the  low,  dignifying  the  mean, 
and  putting  sense  into  the  absurd.  He  makes  his  readers 
glow,  weep,  tremble,  take  any  affection  which  he  pleases,  be 
moved  by  words,  or,  in  spite  of  them,  be  disgusted  and  over 
come  their  disgust. 

FRANCIS    BEAUMONT. — JOHN    FLETCHER. 

Maid's  Tragedy. — One  characteristic  of  the  excellent  old 
poets  is,  their  being  able  to  bestow  grace  upon  subjects  which 
naturally  do  not  seem  susceptible  of  any.  I  will  mention  two 
instances.  Zelmane  in  the  Arcadia  of  Sidney,  and  Helena  in 
the  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  of  Shakspeare.  What  can  be 
more  unpromising,  at  first  sight,  than  the  idea  of  a  young  man 
disguising  himself  in  woman's  attire,  and  passing  himself  off 
for  a  woman  among  women  ;  and  that  for  a  long  space  of  time  1 
Yet  Sir  Philip  has  preserved  so  matchless  a  decorum,  that 
neither  does  Pyrocles'  manhood  suffer  any  stain  for  the  effemi- 
nacy of  Zelmane,  nor  is  the  respect  due  to  the  princesses  at 
all  diminished  when  the  deception  comes  to  be  known.  In  the 
sweetly-constituted  mind  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  it  seems  as  if 
no  ugly  thought  or  unhandsome  meditation  could  find  a  harbour. 
He  turned  all  that  he  touched  into  images  of  honour  and  virtue 
Helena  in  Shakspeare  is  a  young  woman  seeking  a  man  in 
marriage.  The  ordinary  rules  of  courtship  are  reversed,  the 
habitual  feelings  are  crossed.  Yet  with  such  exquisite  address 
this  dangerous  subject  is  handled,  that  Helena's  forwardness 
loses  her  no  honour ;  delicacy  dispenses  with  its  laws  in  her 
favour,  and  nature,  in  her  single  case,  seems  content  to  suffer  a 
sweet  violation.  Aspatia,  in  the  Maid's  Tragedy,  is  a  char- 
acter equally  difficult  with  Helena,  of  being  managed  with 
grace.  She  too  is  a  slighted  woman,  refused  by  the  man  who 
had  once  engaged  to  marry  her.  Yet  it  is  artfully  contrived, 
that  while  we  pity  we  respect  her,  and  she  descends  without 
degradation.  Such  wonders  true  poetry  and  passion  can  do, 
to  confer  dignity  upon  subjects  which  do  not  seem  capable  of 
it.  But  Aspatia  must  not  be  compared  at  all  points  with  Hel- 
ena ;  she  does  not  so  absolutely  predominate  over  her  situa- 
tion but  she  suffers  some  diminution,  some  abatement  of  the 
full  lustre  of  the  female  character,  which  Helena  never  does. 
Her  character  has  many  degrees  of  sweetness,  some  of  deli- 
cacy ;  but  it  has  weakness,  which,  if  wc  do  not  despise,  we 
are  sorry  for.  After  all,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  but  an 
inferior  sort  of  Shakspeares  and  Sidneys. 

Philastcr. — The  character  of  Bellario  must  have  been  ex- 


CONTEMPORARY    WITH    SIIAKSPEARE.  379 

tremely  popular  in  its  day.  For  many  years  after  the  date 
of  Phdaster's  first  exhibition  on  the  stage,  scarce  a  play  can 
be  found  without  one  of  these  women  pages  in  it,  following  in 
the  train  of  some  pre-engaged  lover,  calling  on  the  gods  to 
bless  her  happy  rival,  (his  mistress,)  whom,  no  doubt,  she 
secretly  curses  in  her  heart,  giving  rise  to  many  pretty  ettft- 
voques,  by-the-way,  on  the  confusion  of  sex,  and  either  made 
happy  at  last  by  some  surprising  turn  of  fate,  or  dismissed  with 
the  joint  pity  of  the  lovers  and  the  audience.  Donne  has  a 
copy  of  verses  to  his  mistress,  dissuading  her  from  a  resolu- 
tion which  she  seems  to  have  taken  up  from  some  of  these 
scenical  representations,  of  following  him  abroad  as  a  page 
It  is  so  earnest,  so  weighty,  so  rich  in  poetry,  in  sense,  in  wit, 
and  pathos,  that  it  deserves  to  be  read  as  a  solemn  close  in 
future  to  all  such  sickly  fancies  as  he  there  deprecates. 

JOHN   FLETCHER.    ■ 

Thierry  and  Theodoret. — The  scene  where  Ordella  offers 
her  life  a  sacrifice,  that  the  King  of  France  may  not  be  child- 
less, I  have  always  considered  as  the  finest  in  all  Fletcher, 
and  Ordella  to  be  the  most  perfect  notion  of  the  female  heroic 
character,  next  to  Calantha  in  the  Broken  Heart.  She  is  a 
piece  of  sainted  nature.  Yet,  noble  as  the  whole  passage  is, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  manner  of  it,  compared  with 
Shakspeare's  finest  scenes,  is  faint  and  languid.  Its  motion  is 
circular,  not  progressive.  Each  line  revolves  on  itself  in  a 
sort  of  separate  orbit.  They  do  not  join  into  one  another  like 
a  running-hand.  Fletcher's  ideas  moved  slow  ;  his  versifica- 
tion, though  sweet,  is  tedious,  it  stops  at  every  turn  ;  he  lays 
line  upon  line,  making  up  one  after  the  other,  adding  image 
to  image  so  deliberately,  that  we  see  their  junctures.  Shaks- 
peare  mingles  everything,  runs  line  into  line,  embarrasses  sen- 
tences and  metaphors  ;  before  one  idea  has  burst  its  shell,  an- 
other is  hatched  and  clamorous  for  disclosure.  Another  striking 
difference  between  Fletcher  and  Shakspeare,  is  the  fondness  of 
the  former  for  unnatural  and  violent  situations.  He  seems  to 
have  thought  that  nothing  great  could  be  produced  in  an  ordinary 
way.  The  chief  incidents  in  some  of  his  most  admired  trage- 
dies show  this.*  Shakspeare  had  nothing  of  this  eontortion  in 
his  mind,  none  of  that  craving  after  violent  situations,  and 
flights  of  strained  and  improbable  virtue,  which  I  think  always 
betrays  an  imperfect  moral  sensibility.     The  wit  of  Fletcher 

*  Wifc  tor  a  Month,  Cupid's  Revenge,  Double  Marriage,  &c. 


3S0  CHARACTERS    OF    DRAMATIC  WRITERS. 

is  excellent*  like  his  serious  scenes,  but  there  is  something 
strained  and  far-fetched  in  both.  He  is  too  mistrustful  of  Na- 
ture, he  always  goes  a  little  on  one  side  of  her.  Shakspeare 
chose  her  without  a  reserve  :  and  had  riches,  power,  under- 
standing, and  length  of  days  with  her  for  a  dowry. 

Faithful  Shepherdess. — If  all  the  parts  of  this  delightful  pas- 
toral had  been  in  unison  with  its  many  innocent  scenes  and 
sweet  lyric  intermixtures,  it  had  been  a  poem  fit  to  vie  with 
Comus  or  the  Arcadia,  to  have  been  put  into  the  hands  of  boys 
and  virgins,  to  have  made  matter  for  young  dreams,  like  the 
loves  of  Hermia  and  Lysander.  But  a  spot  is  on  the  face  of 
this  Diana.  Nothing  short  of  infatuation  could  have  driven 
Fletcher  upon  mixing  with  this  "  blessedness"  such  an  ugly 
deformity  as  Cloe,  the  wanton  shepherdess !  If  Cloe  was 
meant  to  set  off  Clorin  by  contrast,  Fletcher  should  have 
known  that  such  weeds  by  juxtaposition  do  not  set  off,  but  kill 
sweet  flowers. 

« 

PHILIP    MASSINGER. THOMAS    DECKER. 

The  Virgin  Martyr. — This  play  has  some  beauties  of  so 
very  high  an  order,  that,  with  all  my  respect  for  Massinger, 
I  do  not  think  he  had  poetical  enthusiasm  capable  of  rising  up 
to  them.  His  associate,  Decker,  who  wrote  Old  Fortunatus, 
had  poetry  enough  for  anything.  The  very  impurities  which 
obtrude  themselves  among  the  sweet  pieties  of  this  play,  like 
Satan  among  the  Sons  of  Heaven,  have  a  strength  of  contrast, 
a  raciness,  and  a  glow  in  them,  which  are  beyond  Massinger. 
They  are  to  the  religion  of  the  rest  what  Caliban  is  to  Mi- 
randa. 

PHILIP    MASSINCfER. THOMAS    MIDDLETON. — WILLIAM   ROWLEY. 

Old  Laiv. — There  is  an  exquisiteness  of  moral  sensibility, 
making  one's  eyes  to  gush  out  tears  of  delight,  and  a  poetical 
strangeness  in  the  circumstances  of  this  sweet  tragi-comedy, 
which  are  unlike  anything  in  the  dramas  which  Massinger 
wrote  alone.  The  pathos  is  of  a  subtle  edge.  Middleton 
and  Rowley,  who  assisted  in  it,  had  both  of  them  finer  geni- 
uses than  their  associate. 

JAMES    SHIRLEY. 

Claims  a  place  among  the  worthies  of  this  period,  not  so 
much  for  any  transcendent  talent  in  himself,  as  that  he  was 

*  Wit  without  Money,  and  his  comedies  generally. 


SPECIMENS    FROM    FULLERS    WRITINGS.  381 

the  last  of  a  great  race,  all  of  whom  spoke  nearly  the  same 
language,  and  had  a  set  of  moral  feelings  and  notions  in  com- 
mon. A  new  language,  and  quite  a  new  turn  of  tragic  and 
comic  interest,  came  in  wilh  the  restoration. 


SPECIMENS  FROM  THE  WRITINGS  OF  FULLER, 

THE    CHURCH    HISTORIAN. 

The  writings  of  Fuller  are  usually  designated  hy  the  title 
of  quaint,  and  with  sufficient  reason  ;  for  such  was  his  natu- 
ral bias  to  conceits,  that  I  doubt  not  upon  most  occasions  it 
would  have  been  going  out  of  his  way  to  have  expressed  him- 
self out  of  them.  But  his  wit  is  not  always  a  lumen  siccum,  a 
dry  faculty  of  surprising ;  on  the  contrary,  his  conceits  are 
oftentimes  deeply  steeped  in  human  feeling  and  passion. 
Above  all,  his  way  of  telling  a  story,  for  its  eager  liveliness, 
and  the  perpetual  running  commentary  of  the  narrator  happily 
blended  with  the  narration,  is  perhaps  unequalled. 

As  his  works  are  now  scarcely  perused  but  by  antiquaries, 
I  thought  it  might  not  be  unacceptable  to  my  readers  to  pre- 
sent tbem  with  some  specimens  of  his  manner,  in  single 
thoughts  and  phrases,  and  in  some  few  passages  of  greater 
length,  chiefly  of  a  narrative  description.  I  shall  arrange  them 
as  I  casually  find  them  in  my  book  of  extracts,  without  being 
solicitous  to  specify  the  particular  work  from  which  they  are 
taken. 

Pyramids. — "  The  Pyramids  themselves,  doting  with  age, 
have  forgotten  the  names  of  their  founders." 

Virtue  in  a  short  person. — "  His  soul  had  but  a  short  diocese 
to  visit,  and  therefore  might  the  better  attend  the  effectual  in- 
forming thereof." 

Intellect  in  a  very  tall  one. — "  Ofttimes  such  wrho  are  built 
four  stories  high,  are  observed  to  have  little  in  their  cock- 
loft." 

Naturals. — "  Their  heads  sometimes  so  little,  that  there  is 
no  room  for  wit ;  sometimes  so  long,  that  there  is  no  wit  for 
so  much  room." 

Negro*s. — "  The  image  of  God  cut  in  ebony." 

School-divinity. — "  At  the  first  it  will  be  as  welcome  to 
thee  as  a  prison,  and  their  very  solutions  will  seem  knots  un- 
to thee." 


382  SPECIMENS    FROM    FULLER'S    WRITINGS. 

Mr.  Perkins  the  divine. — "  He  had  a  capacious  head,  with 
angles  winding  and  roomy  enough  to  lodge  all  controversial 
intricacies." 

The  same. — "  He  would  pronounce  the  word  damn  with 
such  an  emphasis  as  left  a  doleful  echo  in  his  auditors'  ears  a 
good  while  after." 

Judges  in  capital  cases. — "  Oh  let  him  take  heed  how  he 
strikes,  that  hath  a  dead  hand." 

Memory. — "  Philosophers  place  it  in  the  rear  of  the  head, 
and  it  seems  the  mine  of  memory  lies  there,  because  there 
men  naturally  dig  for  it,  scratching  it  when  they  are  at  a  loss." 

Fancy. — "  It  is  the  most  boundless  and  restless  faculty  of 
the  soul ;  for  while  the  understanding  and  the  will  are  kept, 
as  it  were,  in  libera  custodia  to  their  objects  of  verum  et  bonum, 
the  fancy  is  free  from  all  engagements  :  it  digs  without  spade, 
sails  without  ship,  flies  without  wings,  builds  without  charges, 
fights  without  bloodshed :  in  a  moment  striding  from  the  cen- 
tre to  the  circumference  of  the  world  ;  by  a  kind  of  omnipotency 
creating  and  annihilating  things  in  an  instant;  and  things  di- 
vorced in  Nature  are  married  in  fancy  as  in  a  lawless 
place." 

Infants. — "  Some,  admiring  what  motives  to  mirth  infants 
meet  with  in  their  silent  and  solitary  smiles,  have  resolved, 
how  truly  I  know  not,  that  then  they  converse  with  angels ; 
as,  indeed,  such  cannot  among  mortals  find  any  fitter  com- 
panions." 

Music. — "  Such  is  the  sociableness  of  music,  it  conforms 
itself  to  all  companies,  both  in  mirth  and  mourning;  comply- 
ing to  improve  that  passion  with  which  it  finds  the  auditors 
most  affected.  In  a  word,  it  is  an  invention  which  might 
have  beseemed  a  son  of  Seth  to  have  been  the  father  thereof: 
though  better  it  was  that  Cain's  great  grandchild  should  have 
the  credit  first  to  find  it,  than  the  world  the  unhappiness  long- 
er to  have  wanted  it." 

St.  Monica. — "  Drawing  near  her  death,  she  sent  most 
pious  thoughts  as  harbingers  to  heaven,  and  her  soul  saw  a 
glimpse  of  happiness  through  the  chinks  of  her  sickness- 
broken  body."* 

Mortality. — "  To  smell  to  a  turf  of  fresh  earth  is  whole- 
some for  the  body,  no  less  are  thoughts  of  mortality  cordial  to 
the  soul." 

Virgin. — "  No  lordling  husband  shall  at  the  same  time 
command  her  presence  and  distance ;    to  be  always  near  in 

*  "  The  soul's  dark  cottage,  batter'd  and  decay'd, 

Lets  in  new  lights  through  chinks  which  time  has  made.*' 

Waller. 


SPECIMENS    FROM    FULLER  S    WRITINGS.  383 

constant  attendance,  and  always  to  stand  aloof  in  awful  ob- 
servance." 

Elder  brother. — "  Is  one  who  made  haste  to  come  into  the 
■world  to  bring  bis  parents  the  first  news  of  male  posterity, 
and  is  well  rewarded  for  his  tidings." 

Bishop  Fletcher. — "  His  pride  was  rather  on  him  than  in 
him,  as  only  gait  and  gesture  deep,  not  sinking  to  his  heart, 
though  causelessly  condemned  for  a  proud  man,  as  who  was 
a  good  hypocrite,  and  far  more  humble  than  he  appeared." 

Blasters  of  colleges. — "A  little  allay  of  dulness  in  a  master 
of  a  college  makes  him  fitter  to  manage  secular  affairs." 

The  good  yeoman. — "  Is  a  gentleman  in  ore,  whom  the 
next  age  may  see  refined." 

Good  parent. — "  For  his  love,  therein,  like  a  well-drawn 
picture,  he  eyes  all  his  children  alike."' 

Deformity  in  children. — "  This  partiality  is  tyranny,  when 
parents  despise  those  that  are  deformed ;  enough  to  break 
those  whom  God  had  bowed  before." 

Good  master. — "  In  correcting  his  servant  he  becomes  not 
a  slave  to  his  own  passion.  Not  cruelly  making  new  inden- 
tures of  the  flesh  of  his  apprentice.  He  is  tender  of  his 
servant  in  sickness  and  age.  If  crippled  in  his  service,  his 
house  is  his  hospital.  Yet  how  many  throw  away  those  dry 
bones,  out  of  the  which  themselves  have  sucked  the  mar- 
row ! 

Good  widow. — "If  she  can  speak  but  little  good  of  him, 
[her  dead  husband,]  she  speaks  but  little  of  him.  So  hand- 
somely folding  up  her  discourse,  that  his  virtues  are  shown 
outward,  and  his  vices  wrapped  up  in  silence;  as  counting  it 
barbarism  to  throw  dirt  on  his  memory  who  hath  mould  cast 
on  his  body." 

Harses. —  "These  are  men's  wings,  wherewith  they  make 
such  speed.  A  generous  creature  a  horse  is,  sensible  in  some 
sort  of  honour  ;  and  made  most  handsome  by  that  which  de- 
forms men  most — pride." 

Martyrdom. — "  Heart  of  oak  hath  sometimes  warped  a  little 
in  the  scorching  heat  of  persecution.  Their  want  of  true 
courage  herein  cannot  be  excused.  Yet  many  censure  them 
for  surrendering  up  their  forts  after  a  long  siege,  who  would 
have  yielded  up  their  own  at  the  first  summons.  Oh  !  there 
is  more  required  to  make  one  valiant,  than  to  call  Cranmer  or 
Jewel  coward;  as  if  the  fire  in  Smithfield  had  been  no 
hotter  than  what  is  painted  in  the  Book  of  .Martyrs." 

Text  of  St.  Paul. — "St.  Paul  saith,  let  not  the  sun  go 
down  on  your  wrath,  to  carry  news  to  the  antipodes  in  another 
world  of  thy  revengeful  nature.     Yet  let  us  take  the  Apostle's 


384  SPECIMENS    FROM    FTJLLEIi's    WRITINGS. 

meaning  rather  than  his  words,  with  all  possible  speed  to 
depose  our  passion  ;  not  understanding  him  so  literally  that 
we  may  take  leave  to  be  angry  till  sunset :  then  might  our 
wrath  lengthen  with  the  days  ;  and  men  in  Greenland,  where 
the  day  lasts  above  a  quarter  of  a  year,  have  plentiful  scope 
for  revenge."* 

Bishop  Brownrig. — "He  carried  learning  enough  in  nu- 
merato  about  him  in  his  pockets  for  any  discourse,  and  had 
much  more  at  home  in  his  chests  for  any  serious  dispute." 

Modest  want. — "  Those  that  with  diligence  fight  against 
poverty,  though  neither  conquer  till  death  makes  it  a  drawn 
battle,  expect  not,  but  prevent  their  craving  of  thee  :  for  God 
forbid  the  heavens  should  never  rain,  till  the  earth  first  opens 
her  mouth  ;  seeing  some  grounds  will  sooner  burn  than  chap." 

Deathbed  temptations. — "  The  devil  is  most  busy  on  the 
last  day  of  his  term  ;  and  a  tenant  to  be  outed  cares  not  what 
mischief  he  doth." 

Conversation. — "  Seeing  we  are  civilized  Englishmen,  let  us 
not  be  naked  savages  in  our  talk." 

Wounded  soldier. — "  Halting  is  the  stateliest  march  of  a 
soldier  ;  and  'tis  a  brave  sight  to  see  the  flesh  of  an  ancient  as 
torn  as  his  colours." 

Wat  Tyler. — "  A  misogrammatist ;  if  a  good  Greek  word 
may  be  given  to  so  barbarous  a  rebel." 

Heralds. — "Heralds  new  mould  men's  names — taking  from 
them,  adding  to  them,  melting  out  all  the  liquid  letters,  tor- 
turing mutes  to  make  them  speak,  and  making  vowels  dumb — 
to  bring  it  to  a  fallacious  homonomy  at  the  last,  that  their  names 
may  be  the  same  with  those  noble  houses  they  pretend  to." 

Antiquarian  diligence. — "  It  is  most  worthy  observation, 
with  what  diligence  he  [Camden]  inquired  after  ancient 
places,  making  hue  and  cry  after  many  a  city  which  was  rim 
away,  and  by  certain  marks  and  tokens  pursuing  to  find  it ;  as 
by  the  situation  on  the  Roman  highways,  by  just  distance 
from  other  ancient  cities,  by  some  affinity  of  name,  by  tradi- 
tion of  the  inhabitants,  by  Roman  coins  digged  up,  and  by 
some  appearance  of  ruins.  A  broken  urn  is  a  whole  evi- 
dence ;  or  an  old  gate  still  surviving,  out  of  which  the  city  is 
run  out.  Besides,  commonly  some  new  spruce  town  not  far  off 
is  grown  out  of  the  ashes  thereof,  which  yet  hath  so  much 

*  This  whimsical  prevention  of  a  consequence  which  no  one  would  have 
thought  of  deducing — setting  up  an  absurdam  on  purpose  to  hunt  it  down — 
placing  guards  as  it  were  at  the  very  outposts  of  possibility — gravely  giving 
out  laws  to  insanity,  and  prescribing  moral  fences  to  distempered  intellects, 
could  never  have  entered  into  a  head  less  entertainingly  constructed  than  that 
of  Fuller  or  Sir  Thomas  Hrowne,  the  very  air  of  whose  style  the  conclusion 
of  this  passage  most  aptly  imitates. 


SPECIMENS  FROM  FULLER  S  WRITINGS.       385 

natural  affection  as  dutifully  to  own  those  reverend  ruins  for 
her  mother.'' 

Hercry  de  Essex, — "  He  is  too  well  known  in  our  English 
chronicles,  being  Baron  of  Raleigh  in  Essex,  and  hereditary 
standard-bearer  of  England.  It  happened  in  the  reign  of  this 
king  [Henry  II.]  there  was  a  fierce  battle  fought  in  Flintshire, 
at  Coleshall,  between  the  English  and  Welsh,  wherein  this 
Henry  de  Essex  animum  et  signum  simul  abjecit,  between 
traitor  and  coward,  cast  away  both  his  courage  and  banner 
together,  occasioning  a  great  overthrow  of  English.  But  he 
that  had  the  baseness  to  do,  had  the  boldness  to  deny  the 
doing  of  so  foul  a  fact ;  until  he  was  challenged  in  combat  by 
Robert  de  Momford,  a  knight,  eyewitness  thereof,  and  by  him 
overcome  in  a  duel.  Whereupon  his  large  inheritance  was 
confiscated  to  the  king,  and  he  himself,  partly  thrust,  partly 
going  into  a  convent,  hid  his  head  in  a  cowl,  under  tohich,  be- 
tween shame  and  sanctiti/,  he  blushed  out  the  remainder  of  his 
life.''''* — Worthies.     Article,  Bedfordshire. 

Sir  Edward  Harwood,  Knight. — "  I  have  read  of  a  bird 
which  hath  a  face  like,  and  yet  will  prey  upon  a  man  ;  who, 
coming  to  the  water  to  drink,  and  finding  there  by  reflection 
that  he  had  killed  one  like  himself,  pineth  away  by  degrees, 
and  never  afterward  eiijoyeth  itself.t  Such  is  in  some  sort 
the  condition  of  Sir  Edward.  This  accident,  that  he  had  killed 
one  in  a  private  quarrel,  put  a  period  to  his  carnal  mirth,  and 
was  a  covering  to  his  eyes  all  the  days  of  his  life.     No  pos- 

*  The  fine  imagination  of  Fuller  has  done  what  might  have  been  pro- 
nounced impossible  :  it  has  given  an  interest,  and  a  holy  character,  to  coward 
infamy-  Nothing  can  be  more  beautiful  than  the  concluding  account  of  the 
last  days,  and  expiatory  retirement,  of  poor  Henry  de  Essex.  The  address  with 
which  the  whole  of  this  little  story  is  told  is  most  consummate  ;  the  charm 
of  it  seems  to  consist  m  a  perpetual  balance  of  antitheses  not  too  violently  op- 
posed, and  the  consequent  activity  of  mind  in  which  the  reader  is  kept  : — 
"  Between  traitor  and  coward" — "  baseness  todo,  boldness  to  deny" — "partly 
thrust,  partly  going  into  a  convent" — "between  shame  and  sanctity."  The 
reader  by  this  artifice  is  taken  into  a  kind  of  partnership  with  the  writer— his 
judgment  is  exercised  in  settling  the  preponderance — he  feels  as  if  he  were 
consulted  as  to  the  issue.  But  the  modern  historian  flings  at  once  the  dead 
weight  of  his  own  judgment  into  the  scale,  and  settles  the  matter. 

t  I  do  not  know  where  Fuller  read  of  this  bird  ;  but  a  more  awful  and  af- 
fecting story,  and  moralizing  of  a  story,  in  natural  history,  or  rather  in  that 
fabulous  natural  history,  where  poets  and  mycologists  found  the  pli 
and  the  unicorn,  and  "other  strange  fowl,"  is  nowhere  extant.  It  is  a  table 
which  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  if  he  had  heard  of  it,  would  have  exploded  among 
his  Vulgar  Errors ;  but  the  delight  which  he  would  have  taken  in  the  dis- 
cussing of  its  probabilities  would  have  shown  that  the  truth  oftbzfact,  though 
the  avowed  object  of  his  search  was  not  so  much  the  motive  which  put  lnm 
upon  the  investigation,  as  those  hidden  affinities  and  poetical  analogies — 
those  essential  verities,  in  the  application  of  strange  fable,  which  made  him  linger 
with  such  reluctant  delay  among  the  last  fading  lights  of  popular  tradition  ; 
and  not  seldom  to  conjure  up  a  superstition,  that  had  been  long  extinct,  (rem 
its  dusty  grave,  to  inter  it  himself  with  greater  ceremonies  and  solemnities 
of  burial 

33 


386  SPECIMENS    FROM    FULLER  S    WRITINGS. 

sible  provocations  could  afterward  tempt  him  to  a  duel ;  and 
no  wonder  that  one's  conscience  loathed  that  whereof  he 
had  surfeited.  He  refused  all  challenges  with  more  honour 
than  others  accepted  them  ;  it  being  well  known,  that  he 
would  set  his  foot  as  far  in  the  face  of  his  enemy  as  any  man 
alive. —  Worthies.     Art.  Lincolnshire. 

Decayed  gentry. — "  It  happened  in  the  reign  of  King  James, 
when  Henry,  earl  of  Huntingdon,  was  lieutenant  of  Leicester- 
shire, that  a  labourer's  son  in  that  county  was  pressed  into  the 
wars  ;  as  I  take  it,  to  go  over  with  Count  Mansfield.  The  old 
man  at  Leicester  requested  his  son  might  be  discharged,  as 
being  the  only  staff  of  his  age,  who  by  his  industry  maintained 
him  and  his  mother.  The  earl  demanded  his  name,  which 
the  man  for  a  long  time  was  loath  to  tell ;  (as  suspecting  it  a 
fault  for  so  poor  a  man  to  confess  the  truth ;)  at  last  he  told 
his  name  was  Hastings.  "  Cousin  Hastings,"  said  the  earl, 
"  we  cannot  all  be  top  branches  of  the  tree,  though  we  all 
spring  from  the  same  root;  your  son,  my  kinsman,  shall  not 
be  pressed."  So  good  was  the  meeting  of  modesty  -in  a  poor, 
with  courtesy  in  an  honourable  person,  and  gentry,  I  believe, 
in  both.  And  I  have  reason  to  believe,  that  some  who  justly 
own  the  surnames  and  blood  of  Bohuns,  Mortimers,  and  Plan- 
tagenets,  (though  ignorant  of  their  own  extractions,)  are  hid 
in  the  heap  of  common  people,  where  they  find  that  under  a 
thatched  cottage  which  some  of  their  ancestors  could  not  en- 
joy in  a  leaded  castle — contentment,  with  quiet  and  security." 
—  Worthies.     Art.  Of  Shire-Reeves  or  Shiriffes. 

Tenderness  of  conscience  in  a  tradesman. — "  Thomas  Cur- 
son,  born  in  Allhallows,  Lombard-street,  armorer,  dwelt  with- 
out Bishopsgate.  It  happened  that  a  stage-player  borrowed 
a  rusty  musket,  which  had  lain  long  leger  in  his  shop  :  now 
though  his  part  were  comical,  he  therewith  acted  nnex- 
pected  tragedy,  killing  one  of  the  standers-by,  the  gun  casu- 
ally going  off  on  the  stage,  which  he  suspected  not  to  be 
charged.  Oh  the  difference  of  divers  men  in  the  tenderness 
of  their  consciences  !  some  are  scarce  touched  with  a  wound, 
while  others  are  wounded  with  a  touch  therein.  This  poor 
armorer  was  highly  afflicted  therewith,  though  done  against 
his  will,  yea,  without  his  knowledge,  in  his  absence,  by  anoth- 
er, out  of  mere  chance.  Hereupon  he  resolved  to  give  all  his 
estate  to  pious  uses  :  no  sooner  had  he  gotten  a  round  sum, 
but  presently  he  posted  with  it  in  his  apron  to.  the  court  of  al- 
dermen, and  was  in  pain  till  by  their  direction  he  had  settled 
it  for  the  relief  of  poor  in  his  own  and  other  parishes,  and 
disposed  of  some  hundreds  of  pounds  accordingly,  as  I  am 
credibly  informed  by  the  then  churchwardens  of  the  said  par- 


SPECIMENS    FROM    FULLER'S    WRITINGS.  387 

ish.  Tims,  as  he  conceived  himself  casually  (though  at  a 
great  distance)  to  have  occasioned  the  death  of  one,  hu  was 
tlie  immediate  and  direct  cause  of  giving  a  comfortable  living 
to  many." 

Burning  of  Wickliffes  body  bu  order  of  the  council  of  Con- 
stance.— "  Hitherto  [A.  D.  1428]  the  corpse  of  John  Wick- 
lifle  had  quietly  slept  in  his  grave  about  forty-one  years  after 
his  death,  till  his  body  was  reduced  to  Bones,  and  his  bones 
almost  to  dust.  For  though  the  earth  in  the  chancel  of  Lut- 
terworth, in  Leicestershire,  where  he  was  interred,  hath  not 
so  quick  a  digestion  with  the  earth  of  Aceldama,  to  consume 
flesh  in  twenty-four  hours,  yet  such  the  appetite  thereof,  and 
all  other  English  graves,  to  leave  small  reversions  of  a  body 
after  so  many  years.  But  now  such  the  spleen  of  the  coun- 
cil of  Constance,  as  they  not  only  cursed  his  memory  as  dy- 
ing an  obstinate  heretic,  but  ordered  that  his  bones  (with  this 
charitable  caution,  if  it  may  be  discerned  from  the  bodies  of 
other  faithful  people)  be  taken  out  of  the  ground,  and  thrown 
far  off*  (rom  any  Christian  burial.  In  obedience  hereunto, 
Richard  Fleming,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  diocesan  of  Lutter- 
worth, sent  his  officers  (vultures  with  a  quick  sight  scent  at 
a  dead  carcass")  to  ungrave  him.  Accordingly,  to  Lutterworth 
they  come,  simmer,  commissary,  official,  chancellor,  proctors, 
doctors,  and  their  servants,  (so  that  the  remnant  of  the  body 
would  not  hold  out  a  bone  among  so  many  hands,)  take  what  was 
left  out  of  the  grave,  and  burnt  them  to  ashes,  and  cast  them 
into  Swift,  a  neighbouring  brook  running  hard  by.  Thus  this 
brook  has  conveyed  his  ashes  into  Avon,  Avon  into  Severn, 
Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  then  into  the  main  ocean  ;  and 
thus  the  ashes  of  Wickliffe  are  the  emblem  of  his  docline,  which 
now  is  dispersed  all  the  world  over."* — Church  History. 

*  The  concluding  period  of  this  most  lively  narrative  1  will  not  call  a  con- 
ceit: it  is  one  of  the  grandest  conceptions  I  ever  met  with.  One  feels  the 
ashes  of  Wfcklifia  gliding  away  out  of  the  reach  of  the  sumners,  commissa- 
ries, officials,  proctors,  doctors,  and  all  the  puddering  rout  of  executioners  of 
the  impotent  rage  of  the  baffled  council :  from  Swift  into  Avon,  from  Avon  in- 
to Severn,  from  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  from  the  narrow  seas  into  the 
main  ocean,  where  they  become  the  emblem  of  his  doctrine,  "  dispersed  all 
the  world  over."  Hamlet's  tracing  the  body  of  Cesar  to  the  clay  that  stops  a 
beer-barrel,  is  a  no  less  curious  pursuit  of  "ruined  mortality  ;"  but  it  is  in  an 
inverse  ratio  to  this  :  it  degrades  and  saddens  us,  for  one  part  of  our  nature  at 
least ;  but  this  expands  the  whole  of  our  nature,  and  gives  to  the  body  a  sort 
of  ubiquity — a  diffusion,  as  far  as  the  actions  of  its  partner  can  have  reach 
or  influence. 

I  have  seen  this  passage  smiled  at,  and  set  down  as  a  quaint  conceit  of  old 
Fuller.  But  what  is  not  a  conceit  to  those  who  rend  it  in  a  tadfper  different 
from  that  in  which  the  writer  composed  it?  The  most  pathetic  p:\rts  of 
poetry  to  cold  tempers  seem  and  are  nonsense,  as  divinity  was  to  the  Greeks 
foolishness.  When  Richard  II.,  meditating  on  his  own  utter  annihilation  as 
to  royalty,  cries  out— 

R2 


388  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 


ON  THE  GENIUS  AND  CHARACTER  OF  HOGARTH; 

WITH     SOME     REMARKS    ON    A    PASSAGE     IX    THE    WRITINGS     OF 
THE    LATE    MR.  BARRY. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  noblest  enjoyments  I  had  when  a 
boy,  was  in  the  contemplation  of  those  capital  prints  by  Ho- 
garth, the  Harlot's  and  Rake's  Progresses,  which,  along  with 
some  others,  hung  upon  the  walls  of  a  great  hall  in  an  old- 
fashioned  house  in shire,  and  seemed  the  solitary  tenants 

(with  myself)  of  that  antiquated  and  life-deserted  apartment. 

Recollection  of  the  manner  in  which  those  prints  used  to 
affect  me,  has  often  made  me  wonder,  when  I  have  heard  Ho- 
garth described  as  a  mere  comic  painter,  as  one  of  those 
whose  chief  ambition  was  to  raise  a  lavgh.  To  deny  that 
there  are  throughout  the  prints  which  1  have  mentioned  cir- 
cumstances introduced  of  a  laughable  tendency,  would  be  to 
run  counter  to  the  common  notions  of  mankind  ;  but  to  sup- 
pose that  in  their  ruling  character  they  appeal  chiefly  to  the 
risible  faculty,  and  not  first  and  foremost  to  the  very  heart  of 
its  best  and  most  serious  feelings,  would  be  to  mistake  no 
less  grossly  their  aim  and  purpose.  A  set  of  severer  satires 
(for  they  are  not  so  much  comedies,  which  they  have  been 
likened  to,  as  they  are  strong  and  masculine  satires)  less 
mingled  with  anything  of  mere  fun  were  never  written  upon 
paper  or  graven  upon  copper.  They  resemble  Juvenal,  or 
the  satiric  touches  in  Timon  of  Athens. 

I  was  pleased  with  the  reply  of  a  gentleman,  who,  being 
asked  which  book  he  esteemed  most  in  his  library,  answered 
— "  Shakspeare :"  being  asked  which  he  esteemed  next  best, 
replied — "  Hogarth."  His  graphic  representations  are  indeed 
books:  they  have  the  teeming,  fruitful,  suggestive  meaning 
of  words.     Other  pictures  we  look  at — his  prints  we  read. 

In  pursuance  of  this  parallel,  I  have  sometimes  entertained 
myself  with  comparing  the   Timon  of  Athens  of  Shakspeare 

"  Oh  that  I  were  a  mockery  king  of  snow, 
To  melt  before  the  sun  of  Bolinghroke," 

if  we  have  been  going  on  pace  for  pace  with  the  passion  before,  this  sudden 
conversion  of  a  strong-felt  metaphor  into  something  to  be  actually  realized  in 
nature,  like  that  of  Jeremiah,  "Oh  !  that  my  head  were  waters,  and  mine 
eyes  a  fountain  of  tears,"  is  strictly  and  strikingly  natural ;  but  come  un- 
prepared upon  it,  and  it  is  a  conceit :  and  so  is  a  "  head"  turned  into  "  wa- 
ters." 


ON    THIS    GENIUS    OF    HOGARTH.  3&9 

(which  I  have  just  mentioned)  and  Hogarth's  Rake's  Progress 
together.  The  story,  the  moral  in  both  is  nearly  the  same. 
The  wild  course  of  riot  and  extravagance,  ending  in  the  ono 
with  driving  the  prodigal  from  the  society  of  men  into  the 
solitude  of  the  deserts,  and  in  the  other  with  conducting  the 
rake  through  his  several  stages  of  dissipation  into  the  still 
more  complete  desolations  of  the  mad-house,  in  the  play  and 
in  the  picture  are  described  with  almost  equal  force  and  na- 
ture. The  levee  of  the  rake,  which  forms  the  subject  of  the 
second  plate  in  the  series,  is  almost  a  transcript  of  Timon's 
levee  in  the  opening  scene  of  that  play.  We  find  a  dedica- 
ting poet,  and  other  similar  characters,  in  both. 

The  concluding  scene  in  the  Rake's  Progress  is  perhaps 
superior  to  the  last  scenes  of  Timon.  If  we  seek  for  some- 
thing of  kindred  excellence  in  poetry,  it  must  be  in  the  scenes 
of  Lear's  beginning  madness,  where  the  king,  and  the  fool, 
and  the  Tom-o'-Bcdlam  conspire  to  produce  such  a  medley 
of  mirth  checked  by  misery,  and  misery  rebuked  by  mirth ; 
where  the  society  of  those  "  strange  bedfellows"  which  mis- 
fortunes have  brought  Lear  acquainted  with,  so  finely  sets 
forth  the  destitute  state  of  the  monarch,  while  the  lunatic 
bans  of  the  one,  and  the  disjointed  sayings  and  wild  but  preg- 
nant illusions  of  the  other,  so  wonderfully  sympathize  with 
that  confusion,  which  they  seem  to  assist  in  the  production 
of,  in  the  senses  of  that  "child-changed  father." 

In  the  scene  in  Bedlam,  which  terminates  the  Rake's  Prog- 
ress, we  find  the  same  assortment  of  the  ludicrous  with  the 
terrible.  Here  is  desperate  madness,  the  overturning  of  orig- 
inally strong  thinking  faculties,  at  which  we  shudder,  as  we 
contemplate  the  duration  and  pressure  of  affliction  which  it 
must  have  asked  to  destroy  such  a  building;  and  here  is  the 
gradual  hurtless  lapse  into  idiocy,  of  faculties,  which,  at  their 
best  of  times,  never  having  been  strong,  we  look  upon  the 
consummation  of  their  decay  with  no  more  of  pity  than  is 
consistent  with  a  smile.  The  mad  tailor,  the  poor  driveller 
that  has  gone  out  of  his  wits  (and  truly  he  appears  to  have 
had  no  great  journey  to  go  to  get  past  their  confines)  for  the 
love  of  Charming  Betty  Careless — these  half-laughable,  scarce- 
pit  iable  objects  take  off  from  the  horror  which  the  principal 
figure  would  of  itself  raise,  at  the  same  time  that  they  assist 
the  feeling  of  the  scene  by  contributing  to  the  general  notion 
of  its  subject: — 

'•  Madness,  thou  chaos  of  the  brain, 
What  art,  that  pleasure  giv'st,  and  pain  ? 
Tyranny  of  Fancy's  reign  ! 
Mechanic  Fancy,  that  can  build 
Vast  labyrinths  and  mazes  wild, 
33* 


290  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

With  rule  disjointed,  shapeless  measure 
Fiil'd  with  horror,  rill'd  with  pleasure ! 
Shapes  of  horror,  that  would  even 
Cast  doubts  of  mercy  upon  heaven. 
Shapes  of  pleasure,  that  but  seen, 
Would  split  the  shaking  sides  of  Spleen."* 

Is  it  carrying  the  spirit  of  comparison  to  excess  to  remark, 
that  in  the  poor,  kneeling,  weeping  female  who  accompanies 
her  seducer  in  his  sad  decay,  there  is  something  analogous 
to  Kent,  or  Caius,  as  he  delights  rather  to  be  called,  in  Lear 
— the  noblest  pattern  of  virtue  which  even  Shakspeare  has 
conceived — who  follows  his  royal  master  in  banishment,  that 
had  pronounced  his  banishment,  and  forgetful  at  once  of  his 
wrongs  and  dignities,  taking  on  himself  the  disguise  of  a 
menial,  retains  his  fidelity  to  the  figure,  his  loyalty  to  the 
carcass,  the  shadow,  the  shell,  and  empty  husk  of  Lear  ? 

In  the  perusal  of  a  book,  or  of  a  picture,  much  of  the  im- 
pression which  we  receive  depends  upon  the  habit  of  mind 
which  we  bring  with  us  to  such  perusal.  The  same  circum- 
stance may  make  one  person  laugh,  which  shall  Tender 
another  very  serious  ;  or  in  the  same  person  the  first  impres- 
sion may  be  corrected  by  after-thought.  The  misemployed 
incongruous  characters  at  the  Harlot's  Funeral,  on  a  super- 
ficial inspection,  provoke  to  laughter  ;  but  when  we  have 
sacrificed  the  first  emotion  to  levity,  a  very  different  frame  of 
mind  succeeds,  or  the  painter  has  lost  half  his-  purpose.  I 
never  look  at  that  wonderful  assemblage  of  depraved  beings, 
who,  without  a  grain  of  reverence  or  pity  in  their  perverted 
minds,  are  performing  the  sacred  exteriors  of  duty  to  the 
relics  of  their  departed  partner  in  folly,  but  I  am  as  much 
moved  to  sympathy  from  the  very  want  of  it  in  them,  as  I 
should  be  by  the  finest  representation  of  a  virtuous  deathbed, 
surrounded  by  real  mourners,  pious  children,  weeping  friends 
— perhaps  more  by  the  very  contrast.  What  reflections  does 
it  not  awake,  of  the  dreadful  heartless  state  in  which  the 
creature  (a  female  too)  must  have  lived,  who  in  death  wants 
the  accompaniment  of  one  genuine  tear.  That  wretch  who 
is  removing  the  lid  of  the  coffin  to  gaze  upon  the  corpse  with 
a  face  which  indicates  a  perfect  negation  of  all  goodness  or 
womanhood — the  hypocrite  parson  and  his  demure  partner — 
all  the  fiendish  group — to  a  thoughtful  mind  present  a  moral 
emblem  more  affecting  than  if  the  poor  friendless  carcass 
had  been  depicted  as  thrown  out  to  the  woods,  where  wolves 
had  assisted  at  its  obsequies,  itself  furnishing  forth  its  own 
funeral  banquet.  • 

*  Lines  inscribed  under  the  plate. 


ON    THE    GENIUS    OF    HOGARTH.  391 

It  is  easy  to  laugh  at  such  incongruities  as  are  met  together 
in  this  picture — incongruous  Objects  being  of  the  very  essence 
of  laughter — but  surely  the  laugh  is  far  different  in  its  kind. 
from  that  thou  btless  species  to  which  we  are  moved  by 
uicrc  farce  and  grotesque.  We  laugh  when  Ferdinand  Count 
Fathom,  at  the  first  sight  of  the  white  cliffs  of  Britain,  feels 
his  heart  yearn  with  filial  fondness  towards  the  land  of  his 
progenitors,  which  he  is  coming  to  fleece  and  plunder — we 
smile  at  the  exquisite  irony  of  the  passage — but  if  we  are 
not  led  on  by  such  passages  to  some  more  salutary  feeling 
than  laughter,  we  are  very  negligent  perusers  of  than  in  book 
or  picture. 

It  is  the  fashion  with  those  who  cry  up  the  great  historical 
school  in  this  country,  at  the  head  of  which  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds is  placed,  to  exclude  Hogarth  from  that  school,  as  an 
artist  of  an  inferior  and  vulgar  class.  Those  persons  seem  to 
me  to  confound  the  painting  of  subjects  in  common  or  vulgar 
life  witli  the  being  a  vulgar  artist.  The  quantity  of  thought 
which  Hogarth  crowds  into  every  picture  would  alone  unvul- 
garize  every  subject  which  he  might  choose.  Let  us  take  the 
lowest  of  his  subjects,  the  print  called  Gin  Lane.  Here  is 
plenty  of  poverty  and  low  stuff  to  disgust  upon  a  superficial 
view  ;  and,  accordingly,  a  cold  spectator  feels  himself  imme- 
diately disgusted  and  repelled.  I  have  seen  many  turn  away 
from  it,  not  being  able  to  bear  it.  The  same  persons  would 
perhaps  have  looked  with  great  complacency  upon  Poussin's 
celebrated  picture  of  the  Plague  at  At/tens.*  Disease,  and 
Death,  and  bewildering  Terror,  in  Athenian  garments  are  en- 
durable, and  come,  as  the  delicate  critics  express  it,  within 
the  "  limits  of  pleasurable  sensation."  But  the  scenes  of 
their  own  St.  Giles's  delineated  by  their  own  countryman  are 
too  shocking  to  think  of.  Yet  if  we  could  abstract  our  minds 
from  the  fascinating  colours  of  the  picture,  and  forget  the 
coarse  execution  (in  some  respects)  of  the  print,  intended  as 
it  was  to  be  a  cheap  plate,  accessible  to  the  poorer  sort  of 
people,  for  whose  instruction  it  was  done,  I  think  we  could 
have  no  hesitation  in  conferring  the  palm  of  superior  genius 
upon  Hogarth,  comparing  this  work  of  his  with  Poussin's 
picture.  There  is  more  of  imagination  in  it — that  power 
which  draws  all  things  to  one — which  makes  things  animate 
and  inanimate,  beings  with  their  attributes,  subjects  and  their 
accessories,  take  one  colour,  and  serve  to  one  effect.  Every- 
thing in  the  print,  to  use  a  vulgar  expression,  ttlls.  Every 
part  is   full  of  "  strange  images  of  death."     It  is  perfectly 

*  At  the  late  Mr.  Hope's,  in  Cavendish  Square. 


392  ON  THE  GENIUS  Of  HOGAKTH. 

amazing  and  astounding  to  look  at.  Not  only  the  two  prom- 
inent figures,  the  woman  and  the  half-dead  man,  which  are  as 
terrible  as  anything  which  Michael  Angelo  ever  drew,  but 
everything  else  in  the  print  contributes  to  bewilder  and  stu- 
pify — the  very  houses,  as  i  heard  a  friend  of  mine  express  it, 
tumbling  all  about  in  various  directions,  seem  drunk — seem  ab- 
solutely reeling  from  the  effect  of  that  diabolical  spirit  of 
phrensy  which  goes  forth  over  the  whole  composition.  To 
show  the  poetical  and  almost  prophetical  conception  in  the 
artist,  one  little  circumstance  may  serve.  Not  content  with 
the  dying  and  dead  figures,  which  he  has  strewed  in  profusion 
over  the  proper  scene  of  the  action,  he  shows  you  what  (of  a 
kindred  nature)  is  passing  beyond  it.  Close  by  the  shell,  in 
which,  by  direction  of  the  parish  beadle,  a  man  is  depositing 
Ins  wife,  is  an  old  wall,  which,  partaking  of  the  universal 
decay  around  it,  is  tumbling  to  pieces.  Through  a  gap  in 
this  wall  are  seen  three  figures,  which  appear  to  make  a  part 
in  some  funeral  procession  which  is  passing  by  on  the  other 
side  of  the  wall  out  of  the  sphere  of  the  composition.  This 
extending  of  the  interest  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  subject 
could  only  have  been  conceived  by  a  great  genius.  Shaks- 
peare,  in  his  description  of  the  painting  of  the  Trojan  War, 
in  his  Tarquin  and  Lucrece,  has  introduced  a  similar  device, 
where  the  painter  made  a  part  stand  for  the  whole : — 

"  For  much  imaginary  work  was  there, 
Conceit  deceitful,  so  compact,  so  kind, 
That  for  Achilles'  image  stood  his  spear, 
Griped  in  an  arm'd  hand  ;  himself  behind 
Was  left  unseen,  save  to  the  eye  of  mind  : 
A  hand,  a  foot,  a  face,  a  leg,  a  head, 
Stood  for  the  whole  to  be  imagined." 

This  he  well  calls  imaginary  work,  where  the  spectator 
must  meet  the  artist  in  his  conceptions  halfway;  and  it  is 
peculiar  to  the  confidence  of  high  genius  alone  to  trust  so 
much  to  spectators  or  readers.  Lesser  artists  show  every- 
thing distinct  and  full,  as  they  require  an  object  to  be  made 
out  to  themselves  before  they  can  comprehend  it. 

When  I  think  of  the  power  displayed  in  this  (I  will  not 
hesitate  to  say)  sublime  print,  it  seems  to  me  the  extreme 
narrowness  of  system  alone,  and  of  that  rage  for  classification, 
by  which,  in  matters  of  taste  at  least,  we  are  perpetually  per- 
plexing instead  of  arranging  our  ideas,  that  would  make  us 
concede  to  the  work  of  Poussin  above  mentioned,  and  deny 
to  this  of  Hogarth,  the  name  of  a  grand  serious  composition. 

We  are  for  ever  deceiving  ourselves  with  names  and  the- 
ories.    We  call  one  man  a  great  historical  painter,  because 


ON  THE  GENIUS  OK  HOGARTH.         393 

he  has  takes  for  his  subjects  kings  or  great  men,  or  transac- 
tions over  which  time  baa  thrown  ;i  grandeur;  We  term  an- 
other, the  painter,  of  common  life,  and  set  him  down  in  our  minds 
for  an  artist  of  an  inferior  class,  without  reflecting  whether 
the  quantity  of  thought  shown  by  the  latter  may  not  much 
more  than  level  the  distinction  which  their  mere  choice  of  suh- 
jects  may  seem  to  place  between  them;  or  whether,  in  fact, 
from  that  very  common  life  a  great  artist  may  not  extract  aa 
deep  an  interest  as  another  man  from  that  which  we  are 
pleased  to  call  history. 

I  entertain  the  highest  respect  for  the  talents  and  virtues  of 
Reynolds,  but  I  do  not  like  that  his  reputation  should  over- 
shadow and  stille  the  merits  of  such  a  man  as  Hogarth,  nor 
that  to  mere  names  and  classifications  we  should  be  content 
to  sacrifice  one  of  the  greatest  ornaments  of  England. 

I  would  ask  the  most  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Reynolds, 
whether  in  the  countenances  of  his  Staring  and  Grinning 
Despair,  which  he  has  given  us  for  the  faces  of  Ugolino  and 
dying  Beaufort,  there  be  anything  comparable  to  the  expression 
which  Hogarth  has  put  into  the  face  of  his  broken-down  rake 
in  the  last  plate  but  one  of  the  Rake's  Progress,*  where  a  let- 
ter from  the  manager  is  brought  to  him  to  say  that  his  play 
"  will  not  do  ?"  Here  all  is  easy,  natural,  undistorted ;  but 
withal,  what  a  mass  of  wo  is  here  accumulated  ! — the  long 
history  of  a  misspent  life  is  compressed  into  the  countenance 
as  plainly  as  the  series  of  plates  before  had  told  it ;  here  is 
no  attempt  at  (iorgonian  looks  which  are  to  freeze  the  be- 
holder, no  grinning  at  the  antique  bedposts,  no  face-making, 
or  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  spectators,  in  or  out  of  the 
picture,  but  grief  kept  to  a  man's  self,  a  face  retiring  from 
notice  with  the  shame  which  great  anguish  sometimes  brings 
with  it — a  final  leave  taken  of  hope — the  coming  on  of  vacancy 
and  stupefaction — a  beginning  alienation  of  mind  looking  like 
tranquillity.  Here  is  matter  for  the  mind  of  the  beholder  to 
feed  on  for  the  hour  together — matter  to  feed  and  fertilize 
the  mind.  It  is  too  real  to  admit  one  thought  about  the  power 
of  the  artist  who  did  it.  When  we  compare  the  expression  in 
subjects  which  so  fairly  admit  of  comparison,  and  find  the 
superiority  so  clearly  to  remain  with  Hogarth,  shall  the  mere 
contemptible  difference  of  the  scene  of  it  being  laid  in  the  one 
case  in  our  Fleet  or  King's  Bench  Prison,  and  in  the  other  in 
the  State  Prison  of  Pisa,  or  the  bedroom  of  a  cardinal — or 

*  The  first,  perhaps,  in  all  Hogarth  for  mrious  expression.  That  which 
comes  next  to  it,  I  think,  is  the  jaded  morning  countenance  of  the  aebanciiee 
in  the  second  plate  of  the  Marxiagi  U  <  ,  w  Inch  lectures  on  the  vanity  of 
pleasure  as  audibly  as  anything  in  Bcdesiaste^. 


394  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

that  the  subject  of  the  one  has  never  been  authenticated,  and 
the  other  is  matter  of  history — so  weigh  down  the  real  points 
of  the  comparison,  as  to  induce  us  to  rank  the  artist  who  has 
chosen  the  one  scene  or  subject  (though  confessedly  inferior 
in  that  which  constitutes  the  soul  of  his  art)  in  a  class  from 
which  we  exclude  the  better  genius  (who  has  happened  to 
make  choice  of  the  other)  with  something  like  disgrace  ?* 

The  Boys  tinder  Demoniacal  Possession  of  Raffaelle  and  Do- 
menichino,  by  what  law  of  classification  are  we  bound  to  as- 
sign them  to  belong  to  the  great  style  in  painting,  and  to  de- 
grade into  an  inferior  class  the  Rake  of  Hogarth,  when  he  is 
the  madman  in  the  Bedlam  scene  1  I  am  sure  he  is  far  more 
impressive  than  either.  It  is  a  face  which  no  one  that  has 
seen  can  easily  forget.  There  is  the  stretch  of  human  suffer- 
ing to  the  utmost  endurance,  severe  bodily  pain  brought  on  by 
strong  mental  agony,  the  frightful,  obstinate  laugh  of  madness 
— yet  all  so  unforced  and  natural,  that  those  who  never  were 
witness  to  madness  in  real  life,  think  they  see  nothing  but 
what  is  familiar  to  them  in  this  face.  Here  are  no  tricks  of 
distortion,  nothing  but  the  natural  face  of  agony.  This  is 
high  tragic  painting,  and  we  might  as  well  deny  to  Shakspeare 
the  honours  of  a  great  tragedian,  because  he  has  interwoven 
scenes  of  mirth  with  the  serious  business  of  his  plays,  as  re- 
fuse to  Hogarth  the  same  praise  for  the  two  concluding  scenes 
of  the  Rake's  Progress,  because  of  the  comic  lunaticsf  which 


*  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  somewhere  in  his  lectures,  speaks  of  the  presump- 
tion of  Hogarth  in  attempting  the  grand  style  in  painting,  by  which  he  means 
his  choice  of  certain  Scripture  subjects.  Hogarth's  excursions  into  holy  land 
were  not  very  numerous,  but  what  he  has  left  us  in  this  kind  have  at  least  tbia 
merit,  that  they  have  expression  of  some  sort  or  other  in  them — the  Child  Moses 
before  Pharaoh's  Daughter,  for  instance  :  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds's  Repose  in  Egypt,  painted  for  Macklin's  Bible,  where,  for  a 
Madona,  he  has  substituted  a  sleepy,  insensible,  unmotherly  girl,  one  so  little 
worthy  to  have  been  selected  as  the  mother  of  the  Saviour,  that  she  seems  to 
have  neither  heart  nor  feeling  to  entitle  her  to  become  a  mother  at  all.  Hut 
indeed  the  race  of  Virgin  Mary  painters  seem  to  have  been  cut  up,  root  and 
branch,  at  the  reformation.  Our  artists  are  too  good  Protestants  to  give  life 
to  that  admirable  commixture  of  maternal  tenderness  with  reverential  aweanr! 
wonder  approaching  to  worship,  with  which  the  Virgin  Mothers  of  L.  da  Vinci 
and  Raffaelle  (themselves  by  their  divine  countenances  inviting  men  to  wor- 
ship) contemplate  the  union  of  the  two  natures  in  the  person  of  their  heaven 
born  infant. 

t  "  There  are  of  madmen,  as  here  are  of  tame, 

All  humour'd  not  alike.     We  have  here  some 

So  apish  and  fantastic,  play  with  a  feather ; 

And  though  'twould  grieve  a  soul  so  see  God's  image 

So  blemish'd  and  defaced,  yet  do  they  act 

Such  antic  and  such  pretty  lunacies, 

That,  spite  of  sorrow,  they  will  make  you  smile. 

Others  again  we  have,  like  angry  lions, 

Fierce  as  wild  bulls,  untameable  as  flies." 

Hoiusl  11  hore. 


ON    THE    GENIUS    OF    HOGARTH.  395 

he  has  thrown  into  the  one,  or  the  alchymist  that  he  lias  in- 
troduced into  the  other,  who  is  paddling  in  the  coals  of  his 
furnace,  keeping  alive  the  flames  of  vain  hope  within  the  very 
walls  of  the  prison  to  which  the  vanity  has  conducted  him, 
which  have  taught  the  darker  lesson  of  extinguished  hope  to 
the  desponding  figure  who  is  the  principal  person  of  the  scene. 

It  is  the  force  of  these  kindly  admixtures  which  assimilates 
the  scenes  of  Hogarth  and  of  Shakspeare  to  the  drama  of  real 
life,  where  no  such  thing  as  pure  tragedy  is  to  be  found ;  but 
merriment  and  infelicity,  ponderous  crime  and  feather-light 
vanity,  like  twi-formed  births,  disagreeing,  complexions  of  one 
intertexture,  perpetually  unite  to  show  forth  motley  spectacles 
to  the  world.  Then  it  is  that  the  poet  or  painter  shows  his 
art,  when  in  the  selection  of  these  comic  adjuncts  he  chooses 
such  circumstances  as  shall  relieve,  contrast  with,  or  fall  into, 
without  forming  a  violent  opposition  to  his  principal  object. 
Who  sees  not  that  the  gravedigger  in  Hamlet,  the  fool  in 
Lear,  have  a  kind  of  correspondency  to,  and  fall  in  with  the 
subjects  which  they  seem  to  interrupt,  while  the  comic  stuff 
in  Venice  Preserved,  and  the  doggerel  nonsense  of  the  cook  and 
his  poisoning  associates  in  the  Hollo  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
are  pure,  irrelevant,  impertinent  discords — as  bad  asthequar- 
relling  dog  and  cat  under  the  table  of  the  Lord  and  his  Dis- 
ciples at  Emmaus  of  Titian. 

Not  to  tire  the  reader  with  perpetual  reference  to  prints 
which  he  may  not  be  fortunate  enough  to  possess,  it  may  be 
sufficient  to  remark,  that  the  same  tragic  cast  of  expression 
and  incident,  blended  in  some  instances  with  a  greater  alloy 
of  comedy,  characterizes  his  other  great  work,  the  Marriage 
Alumode,  as  well  as  those  less  elaborate  exertions  of  his  ge- 
nius, the  prints  called  Industry  and  Idleness,  the  Distressed 
Poet,  &c,  forming,  with  the  Harlot's  and  Rake's  Progresses,  the 
most  considerable,  if  not  the  largest  class  of  his  productions, 
enough  surely  to  rescue  Hogarth  from  being  a  mere  buffoon, 
or  one  whose  general  aim  was  only  to  shake  the  sides. 

There  remains  a  very  numerous  class  of  his  performances, 
the  object  of  which  must  be  confessed  to  be  principally 
comic.  But  in  all  of  them  will  be  found  something  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  droll  productions  of  Bunbury  and  others. 
They  have  this  difference,  that  we  do  not  merely  laugh  at, 
we  are  led  into  long  trains  of  reflection  by  them.  In  this  re- 
spect they  resemble  the  characters  of  Chaucer's  Pilgrims, 
which  have  strokes  of  humour  in  them  enough  to  designate 
them  for  the  most  part  as  comic  ;  but  our  strongest  feeling  still 
is  wonder  at  the  Comprehensiveness  of  genius  which  could 


396  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

crowd,  as  poet  and  painter  have  done,  into  one  small  canvass 
so  many  diverse  yet  co-operating  materials. 

The  faces  of  Hogarth  have  not  a  mere  momentary  interest, 
as  in  caricatures,  or  those  grotesque  physiognomies  which 
we  sometimes  catch  a  glance  of  in  the  street,  and,  struck  with 
their  whimsicality,  wish  for  a  pencil  and  the  power  to  sketch 
them  down,  and  forget  them  again  as  rapidly — but  they  are 
permanent,  abiding  ideas.  Not  the  sports  of  nature,  but  her 
necessary  eternal  classes.  We  feel  that  we  cannot  part  with 
any  of  them,  lest  a  link  should  be  broken. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  he  has  seldom  drawn  a 
mean  or  insignificant  countenance.*  Hogarth's  mind  was 
eminently  reflective  ;  and,  as  it  has  been  well  observed  of 
Shakspeare,  that  he  has  transfused  his  own  poetical  charac- 
ter into  the  persons  of  his  drama  (they  are  all  more  or  less 
poets)  Hogarth  has  impressed  a  thinking  character  upon  the 
persons  of  his  canvass.  This  remark  must  not  be  taken  uni- 
versally. The  exquisite  idiotism  of  the  little  gentleman  in 
the  bag  and  sword  beating  his  drum  in  the  print  of  the  En- 
raged Musician,  would  of  itself  rise  up  against  so  sweeping 
an  assertion.  But  I  think  it  will  be  found  to  be  true  of  the 
generality  of  his  countenances.  The  knife-grinder  and  Jew 
flute-player  in  the  plate  just  mentioned  may  serve  as  instances 
instead  of  a  thousand.  They  have  intense  thinking  faces, 
though  the  purpose  to  which  they  are  subservient  by  no 
means  required  it ;  but  indeed  it  seems  as  if  it  was  painful  to 
Hogarth  to  contemplate  mere  vacancy  or  insignificance. 

This  reflection  of  the  artist's  own  intellect  from  the  faces 
of  his  characters,  is  one  reason  why  the  works  of  Hogarth,  so 
much  more  than  those  of  any  other  artist,  are  objects  of  med- 
itation. Our  intellectual  natures  love  the  mirror  which  gives 
them  back  their  own  likenesses.  The  mental  eye  will  not  bend 
long  with  delight  upon  vacancy. 

Another  line  of  eternal  separation  between  Hogarth  and 
the  common  painters  of  droll  or  burlesque  subjects,  with  whom 
he  is  often  confounded,  is  the  sense  of  beauty,  which  in  the 
most  unpromising  subjects  seems  never  wholly  to  have  de- 
serted him.  "  Hogarth  himself,"  says  Mr.  Coleridge,!  from 
whom  I  have  borrowed  this  observation,  speaking  of  a  scene 
which  took  place  at  Ratzeburg,  "  never  drew  a  more  ludicrous 

*  If  there  are  any  of  that  description.  Siey  are  in  his  Strolling  Plmfer^,  a 
print  which  has  been  cried  up  by  Lord  Orford  as  the  richest  of  Ins  pr'< 

lions,  ,-inc]  it  may  be,  for  what  I  know,  in  the  mci  r  I'imh'r.  I  he  properties,  an. I 

dead  furniture  of  the  scene,  but  in  living  character  and  expression  it  is  (lor 
Hogarth)  lamentably  poor  and  wanting ;  it  is  perhaps  the  only  one  of  his  per 
formaneeS  at  which  we  have  a  right  to  feel  disgusted, 
t    The  Friend,  No.  XVI. 


ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH.  397 

distortion  both  of  attitude  and  physiognomy  than  this  ( - 1 1". •.  t 
occasioned  :  nor  was  then  wanting  beside  it  one  of  those 
beautiful  female  faces  which  the  same  Hogarth,  in  wfumi  the 
satirist  never  extinguished  that  luvc  of  beauty  which  belonged 
to  him  as  a  poet,  so  often  and  so  gladly  introduces  as  the  cen- 
tral figure  in  a  crowd  of  humorous  deformities,  which  figure 
(such  is  the  power  of  true  genius)  neither  acts  nor  is  meant  to 
act  as  a  contrast ;  but  diffuses  through  all,  and  over  each  of 
the  group,  a  spirit  of  reconciliation  and  human  kindness  ;  and 
even  when  the  attention  is  no  longer  consciously  directed  to 
the  cause  of  this  feeling,  still  blends  its  tenderness  with  our 
laughter:  and  thus  prevents  tin  instructive  merriment  at  the 
nhims  of  /tot ore,  or  the  foibles  or  humours  of  our  fcUou;-m< ju 
f  rum  degenerating  into  the  heart-poison  of  contempt  or  hatred." 
To  the  beautiful  females  in  Hogarth,  which  .Mr.  G.  has  point- 
ed out,  might  be  added,  the  frequent  introduction  of  children 
(which  Hogarth  seems  to  have  taken  a  particular  delight  in) 
into  his  pieces.  They  have  a  singular  effect  in  giving  tran- 
quillity and  a  portion  of  their  own  innocence  to  the  subject. 
The  baby  riding  in  its  mother's  lap  in  the  March  to  Finehhy 
(its  careless,  innocent  face  placed  directly  behind  the  intrigu- 
ing, time-furrowed  countenance  of  the  treason-plotting  French 
priest)  perfectly  sobers  the  whole  of  that  tumultuous  scene. 
The  boy  mourner  winding  up  his  top  with  so  much  unpre- 
tending insensibility  in  the  plate  of  the  Harlot's  Funeral,  (the 
only  thing  in  that  assembly  that  is  not  a  hypocrite,)  quiets 
and  sooths  the  mind  that  has  been  disturbed  at  the  sight  of 
so  much  depraved  man  and  woman  kind. 

1  had  written  thus  far  when  I  met  with  a  passage  in  the 
writings  of  the  late  Mr.  Barry,  which,  as  it  falls  in  with  the 
vulgar  notion  respecting  Hogarth,  which  this  essay  has  been 
employed  in  combating,  1  shall  take  the  liberty  to  transcribe, 
with  such  remarks  as  may  suggest  themselves  to  me  in  the 
transcription  ;  referring  the  reader  for  a  full  answer  to  that 
which  has  gone  before. 

"  Notwithstanding   Hogarth's  merit  does   undoubtedly  entitle  him  to  an 
honourable  place  among  the  artists,  and  that  his  little  compositions, considered 
as  so  many  dramatic  representations,  abounding  with  humour,  character,  and 
extensive  observations  on  the  various  incidents  of  low,  faulty,  and  vicious  life 
are  very  ingeniously  brought  together,  and  frequently  tell  their  own  story  with 
moil'  facility  than  is  often  found  m  many  o(  the  elevated  and  more  noble  in- 
ventions of  Raffaelle  and  other  great  men  ;  yet  it  must  be  honestly  eonf 
that  in  what  is  called  knowledge  of  the  figure,  foreigners  have  justly  ob» 
that  Hogarth  is  often  so  raw  and  unformed  as  hardly  to  deserve  the  name  of 
an  artist.     But  this  capital  defect  is  not  often  perceivable,  as  examples  oi  the 
naked  and  of  elevated  nature  but  rarely  occur  in  his  subjects,  which  are  ii>r 
the  most  part  filled  with  characters,  that  in  their  nature  tend  todeformi'. 
Sides,  his  figures  are  small,  and  the  junctures,  and  other  difficulties  ot  drawing 
that  might  occur  in  their  limbs,  are  artfully  concealed  \Mth  then"  clothes,  rags, 
34 


39S  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

&c.  But  what  would  atone  for  all  his  defects,  even  if  they  were  twice  told, 
is  his  admirable  fund  of  invention,  ever  inexhaustible  in  its  resources;  and  his 
satire,  which  is  always  sharp  and  pertinent,  and  often  highly  moral,  was  (ex- 
cept in  a  few  instances,  where  he  weakly  and  meanly  suffered  his  integrity  to 
give  way  to  his  envy)  seldom  or  never  employed  in  a  dishonest  or  unmanly 
way.  Hogarth  has  been  often  imitated  in  his  satirical  vein,  sometimes  in  his 
humorous  ;  but  very  few  have  attempted  to  rival  him  in  his  moral  walk.  The 
line  of  art  pursued  by  my  very  ingenious  predecessor  and  brother  academician, 
Mr.  Penny,  is  quite  distinct  from  that  of  Hogarth,  and  is  of  a  much  more  deli- 
cate and  superior  relish  ;  he  attempts  the  heart,  and  reaches  it,  while  Ho- 
garth's general  aim  is  only  to  shake  the  sides  ;  in  other  respects  no  compari- 
son can  be  thought  of,  as  Mr.  Penny  has  all  that  knowledge  of  the  figure  and 
academical  skill  which  the  other  wanted.  As  to  Mr.  Bunbury,  who  had  so 
happily  succeeded  in  the  vein  of  humour  and  cancatura,  he  has  for  some  time 
past  altogether  relinquished  it,  for  the  more  amiable  pursuit  of  beautiful  na- 
ture :  this,  indeed,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  when  we  recollect  that  he  has,  in 
Mrs.  Bunbury,  so  admirable  an  exemplar  of  the  most  finished  grace  and  beau- 
ty continually  at  his  elbow.  But  (to  say  all  that  occurs  to  me  on  this  subject) 
perhaps  it  may  be  reasonably  doubted,  whether  the  being  much  conversant  with 
Hogarth's  method  of  exposing  meanness,  deformity,  and  vice,  in  many  of  his 
works,  is  not  rather  a  dangerous,  or,  at  least,  a  worthless  pursuit ;  which,  it  it 
does  not  find  a  false  relish  and  a  love  of  and  search  after  satire  and  buffoonery 
in  the  spectator,  is  at  least  not  unlikely  to  give  him  one.  Life  is  short ;  and 
the  little  leisure  of  it  is  much  better  laid  out  upon  that  species  of  art  which  is 
employed  about  the  amiable  and  the  admirable,  as  it  is  more  likely  to  be  at 
tended  with  better  and  nobler  consequences  to  ourselves.  These  two  pur 
suits  in  art  may  be  compared  with  two  sets  of  people  with  whom  we  might 
associate  ;  if  we  give  ourselves  up  to  the  Footes,  the  Kenricks,  &c,  we  shall 
be  continually  busied  and  paddling  in  whatever  is  ridiculous,  faulty,  and  vi- 
cious in  life  ;  whereas  there  are  those  to  be  found,  with  whom  we  should  be  in 
the  constant  pursuit  and  study  of  all  that  gives  a  value  and  a  dignity  to  human 
nature."  [Account  of  a  Series  of  Pictures  in  the  Great  Room  of  the  Society 
of  Arts,  Manufactures,  and  Commerce,  at  the  Adelphi,  by  James  Barry,  R.A. 
Professor  of  Painting  to  the  Royal  Academy  ;  reprinted  in  the  last  quarto  edi- 
tion of  his  works.] 

"  It  must  be  honestly  confessed,  that  in  what  is  called  knowledge  of  the  fig- 
ure, foreigners  have  justly  observed,"  &c. 

It  is  a  secret  well  known  to  the  professors  of  the  art  and 
mystery  of  criticism,  to  insist  upon  what  they  do  not  find  in  a 
man's  works,  and  to  pass  over  in  silence  what  they  do.  That 
Hogarth  did  not  draw  the  naked  figure  so  well  as  Michael  An- 
gelo  might  be  allowed,  especially  as  "  examples  of  the  naked," 
as  Mr.  Barry  acknowledges,  "  rarely  (he  might  almost  have 
said  never)  occur  in  his  subjects  ;."  and  that  his  figures  under 
their  draperies  do  not  discover  all  the  fine  graces  of  an  An- 
tinous  or  an  Apollo,  may  be  conceded  likewise  ;  perhaps  it 
was  more  suitable  to  his  purpose  to  represent  the  average 
forms  of  mankind  in  the  mediocrity  (as  Mr.  Burke  expresses 
it)  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived:  but  that  his  figures  in  gen- 
eral, and  in  his  best  subjects,  are  so  glaringly  incorrect  as  is 
here  insinuated,  I  dare  trust  my  own  eye  so  far  as  positively 
to  deny  the  fact.  And  there  is  one  part  .of  the  figure  in  which 
Hogarth  is  allowed  to  have  excelled,  which  these  foreigners 
seem  to  have  overlooked,  or  perhaps  calculating  from  its  pro- 


ON   THE    GENIUS    OF    HOGARTH.  3(J(J 

portion  to  the  whole,  (a  seventh  or  an  eighth,  I  forget  which.) 
deemed  it  of  trilling  importance  ;  I  mean  the  human  face  ;  a 
small  part,  reckoning  by  geographical  inches,  in  the  map  of 
rutin's  body*  but  here  it  is  that  the  painter  of  expression  must 
condense  the  wonders  of  his  skill",  even  at  the  expense  of  neg- 
lecting the  "jonctures  and  other  difficulties  of  drawing  in  the 
limbs,"  which  it  must  be  a  cold  eye  that  in  the  interest  so 
strongly  demanded  by  Hogarth's  countenances  has  leisure  to 
.survey  and  censure. 

"The  line  of  art  pursued  by  my  very  ingenious  predecessor  and  brother  ac- 
ademician, Mr.  Penny." 

The  first  impression  caused  in  me  by  reading  this  pass 
was  an  eager  desire  to  know  who  this  .Mr.  Penny  was.  This 
great  surpasser  of  Hogarth  in  the  "delicacy  of  his  relish," 
and  the  "  line  which  he  pursued,"  where  is  he,  what  are  his 
works,  what  has  he  to  show  ?  In  vain  I  tried  to  recollect,  till, 
by  happily  potting  the  question  to  a  friend  who  is  more  con- 
versant in  the  works  of  the  illustrious  obscure  than  myself,  I 
learned  that  he  was  the  painter  of  a  Death  of  Wolfe  which 
missed  the  prize  the  year  that  the  celebrated  picture  of  West 
on  the  same  subject  obtained  it  ;  that  he  also  made  a  picture 
of  the  Marquis  of  Granby  relieving  u  Sick  Soldier;  moreover, 
that  lie  was  the  inventor  of  two  pictures  of  Suspended  and 
Restored  Animation,  which  I  now  remember  to  have  seen  in 
the  exhibition  some  years  since,  and  the  prints  from  which 
are  still  extant  in  good  men's  houses.  This  then,  I  suppose,  is 
the  line  of  subjects  in  which  Mr.  Penny  was  so  much  supe- 
rior to  Hogarth.  I  confess  I  am  not  of  that  opinion.  The  re- 
lieving of  poverty  by  the  purse,  and  the  restoring  a  young 
man  to  his  parents  by  using  the  methods  prescribed  by  the  Hu- 
mane Society,  are  doubtless  very  amiable  subjects,  pretty 
things  to  teach  the  first  rudiments  of  humanity  ;  they  amount 
lo  about  as  much  instruction  as  the  stories  of  good  boys  that 
give  away  their  custards  to  poor  beggar-boys  in  children's 
books.  But,  good  God  !  is  this  milk  for  babes  to  be  set  up  in 
opposition  to  Hogarth's  moral  scenes,  his  strong  meat  for  men  ? 
As  well  might  we  prefer  the  fulsome  verses  upon  their  own 
goodness,  to  which  the  gentlemen  of  the  Literary  Fund  annu- 
ally sit  still  frith  such  shameless  patience  to  listen,  u>  the  sa- 
tires of  Juvenal  and  Persius  :  because  the  former  are  full  of 
tender  images  of  Worth  relieved  by  Charity,  and  Charity 
stretching  put  her  hand  to  rescue  sinking  Genius,  and  the  theme 
of  the  latter  is  men's  crimes  and  follies  with  their  black  con- 
sequences— forgetful,  meanwhile,  of  those  .strains  of  moral 
pathos,  those    sublime  heart-touches,  which  these  put  is  (in 


400  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

them  chiefly  showing  themselves  poets)  are  perpetually  darting 
across  the  otherwise  appalling  gloom  of  their  subject — consol- 
atory remembrancers,  when  their  pictures  of  guilty  mankind 
have  made  us  even  to  despair  for  our  species,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  virtue  and  moral  dignity  in  the  world,  that  her 
unquenchable  spark  is  not  utterly  out — refreshing  admonitions, 
to  which  we  turn  for  shelter  from  the  too  great  heat  and  as- 
perity of  the  general  satire. 

And  is  there  nothing  analogous  to  this  in  Hogarth?  nothing 
which  "  attempts  and  reaches  the  heart  ?"  no  aim  beyond  that 
"  of  shaking  the  sides  ?"  If  the  kneeling  ministering  female 
in  the  last  scene  of  the  Rake's  Progress,  the  Bedlam  scene, 
of  which  I  have  spoken  before,  and  have  dared  almost  to  par- 
allel it  with  the  most  absolute  idea  of  virtue  which  Shak- 
speare  has  left  us,  be  not  enough  to  disprove  the  assertion  ;  if 
the  sad  endings  of  the  harlot  and  the  rake,  the  passionate, 
heart-bleeding  entreaties  for  forgiveness  which  the  adulterous 
wife  is  pouring  forth  to  her  assassinated  and  dying  lord  in  the 
last  scene  but  one  of  the  Marriage  Alamode — if  these  be  not 
things  to  touch  the  heart,  and  dispose  the  mind  to  a  medita- 
tive tenderness,  is  there  nothing  sweetly  conciliatory  in  the 
mild,  patient  face  and  gesture  with  which  the  wife  seems  to 
allay  and  ventilate  the  feverish,  irritated  feelings  of  her  poor 
poverty-distracted  mate  (the  true  copy  of  the  genus  irritabile) 
in  the  print  of  the  Distressed  Poet  ?  or  if  an  image  of  maternal 
love  be  required,  where  shall  we  find  a  sublimer  view  of  it 
than  in  that  aged  woman  in  Industry  and  Idleness  (plate  V.) 
who  is  clinging  with  the  fondness  of  hope  not  quite  extin- 
guished to  her  brutal,  vice-hardened  child,  whom  she  is  accom- 
panying to  the  ship  which  is  to  bear  him  away  from  his  na- 
tive soil,  of  which  he  has  been  adjudged  unworthy  :  in  whose 
shocking  face  every  trace  of  the  human  countenance  seems 
obliterated,  and  a  brute  beast's  to  be  left  instead,  shocking  and 
repulsive  to  all  but  her  who  watched  over  it  in  its  cradle  be- 
fore it  was  so  sadly  altered,  and  feels  it  must  belong  to  her 
while  a  pulse  by  the  vindictive  laws  of  his  country  shall  be 
suffered  to  continue  to  beat  in  it.  Compared  with  such  things, 
what  is  Mr.  Penny's  "  knowledge  of  the  figure  and  academi- 
cal skill  which  Hogarth  wanted  ?" 

With  respect  to  what  follows  concerning  another  gentleman, 
with  the  congratulations  to  him  on  his  escape  out  of  the  re- 
gions of  "  humour  and  caricatura,"  in  which  it  appears  he  was 
in  danger  of  travelling  side  by  side  with  Hogarth,  I  can  only 
congratulate;  my  country,  that  Mrs.  Hogarth  knew  her  province 
better  than  by  disturbing  her  husband  at  his  palette  to  divert 
him  from  that  universality  of  subject,  which  has  stamped  him 


ON  THE  GENUS  OF  HOGARTH.  401 

perhaps,  next  to  Shakspeare,  the  most  inventive  genius  which 
ihia  island  has  produced,  into  the  "  amiable  pursuit  of  beau- 
tiful nature,"  i.  c,  copying  ad  infinitum  the  individual  charms 
and  graces  of  Mrs.  H — — . 

"  Hogarth's  method  of  exposing  meanness,  deformity,  and  vice,  paddling  in 
whatever  is  ridiculous,  faulty,  and  vicious." 

A  person  unacquainted  with  the  works  thus  stigmatized, 
would  be  apt  to  imagine  that  in  Hogarth  there  was  notlnng 
else  to  be  found  but  subjects  of  the  coarsest  and  most  repulsive 
nature.  That  his  imagination  was  naturally  unsweet,  and  that 
he  delighted  in  raking  into  every  species  of  moral  tilth.  That 
he  preyed  upon  sore  places  only,  and  took  a  pleasure  in  ex- 
posing the  unsound  and  rotten  parts  of  human  nature  ;  whereas, 
with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  plates  of  the  Harlot's  Prog- 
ress, which  are  harder  in  their  character  than  any  of  the  rest 
of  his  productions,  (the  stages  of  Cruelty  I  omit  as  mere 
worthless  caricaturas,  foreign  to  his  general  habits,  the  offspring 
of  his  fancy  in  some  wayward  humour,)  there  is  scarce  one  of 
his  pieces  where  vice  is  most  strongly  satirised,  in  which  some 
figure  is  not  introduced  upon  which  the  moral  eye  may  rest 
satisfied ;  a  face  that  indicates  goodness,  or  perhaps  mere  good- 
humouredness  and  carelessness  of  mind  (negation  of  evil)  only, 
yet  enough  to  give  a  relaxation  to  the  frowning  brow  of  satire, 
and  keep  the  general  air  from  tainting.  Take  the  mild,  sup- 
plicating posture  of  patient  Poverty  in  the  poor  woman  that  is 
persuading  the  pawnbroker  to  accept  her  clothes  in  pledge,  in 
the  plate  of  Gin  Lane,  for  an  instance.  A  little  does  it,  a  lit- 
tle of  the  good  of  nature  overpowers  a  world  of  bad.  One 
cordial,  honest  laugh  of  a  Tom  Jones  absolutely  clears  the  at- 
mosphere that  was  reeking  with  the  black,  putrifying  breathings 
of  a  hypocrite  Blifil.  One  homely,  expostulating  shrug  from 
Strap  warms  the  whole  air  which  the  suggestions  of  a  gen- 
tlemanly ingratitude  from  his  friend  Random  had  begun  to 
freeze.  One  "  Lord  bless  us  !"  of  Parson  Adams  upon  the 
wickedness  of  the  times  exorcises  and  purges  off  the  mass  of 
iniquity  which  the  world-knowledge  of  even  a  Fielding  could 
call  out  and  rake  together.  But  of  the  severer  class  of  Ho- 
garth's performances,  enough,  I  trust,  has  been  said  to  show 
that  they  do  not  merely  shock  and  repulse  ;  that  there  is  in 
them  the  "  scorn  of  vice"  and  the  "pity"  too;  something  to 
touch  the  heart,  and  keep  alive  the  sense  of  moral  beauty  ;  the 
"  laerymae  rerum,"  and  the  sorrowing  by  which  the  heart  is 
made  better.  If  they  be  bad  things,  then  is  satire  and  tragedy 
a  bad  thing  ;  let  us  proclaim  at  once  an  age  of  gold,  and  sink 
the  existence  of  vice  and  misery  in  our  speculations  :  let  us 
34* 


402  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

"  Wink  and  shut  our  apprehensions  up 
From  common  sense  of  what  men  were  and  are  :" 

let  us  make  believe  with  the  children  that  everybody  is  good 
and  happy  ;  and,  with  Dr.  Swift,  write  panegyrics  upon  the 
world. 

But  that  larger  half  of  Hogarth's  works  which  were  painted 
more  for  entertainment  than  instruction,  (though  such  was  the 
suggestiveness  of  his  mind,  that  there  is  always  something  to 
be  learned  from  them,)  his  humorous  scenes,  are  they  such 
as  merely  to  disgust  and  set  us  against  our  species  ? 

The  confident  assertions  of  such  a  man  as  I  consider  the 
late  Mr.  Barry  to  have  been,  have  that  weight  of  authority  in 
them  which  staggers,  at  first  hearing,  even  a  long  preconceived 
opinion.  When  I  read  his  pathetic  admonition  concerning  the 
shortness  of  life,  and  how  much  better  the  little  leisure  of  it 
were  laid  out  upon  "  that  species  of  art  which  is  employed 
about  the  amiable  and  the  admirable  ;"  and  Hogarth's  "meth- 
od" proscribed  as  a  "  dangerous  or  worthless  pursuit,"  I  began 
to  think  there  was  something  in  it ;  that  I  might  have  been  in- 
dulging all  my  life  in  a  passion  for  the  works  of  this  artist,  to 
the  utter  prejudice  of  my  taste  and  moral  sense  ;  but  my  first 
convictions  gradually  returned  ;  a  world  of  good-natured  Eng- 
lish faces  came  up  one  by  one  to  my  recollection,  and  a  glance 
at  the  matchless  Election  Entertainment,  which  I  have  the 
happiness  to  have  hanging  up  in  my  parlour,  subverted  Mr 
Barry's  whole  theory  in  an  instant. 

In  that  inimitable  print,  (which  in  my  judgment  as  far  exceeds 
the  more  known  and  celebrated  March  to  Finchlcy  as  the  best 
comedy  exceeds  the  best  farce  that  ever  was  written,)  let  a 
person  look  till  he  be  saturated,  and  when  he  is  done  wonder- 
ing at  the  inventiveness  of  genius  which  could  bring  so  many 
characters  (more  than  thirty  distinct  classes  of  face)  into  a  room, 
and  set  them  down  at  table  together,  or  otherwise  dispose  them 
about,  in  so  natural  a  manner,  engage  them  in  so  many  easy 
sets  and  occupations,  yet  all  partaking  of  the  spirit  of  the  oc- 
casion which  brought  them  together,  so  that  we  feel  that  no- 
thing but  an  election  time  could  have  assembled  them  ;  having 
no  central  figure  or  principal  group,  (for  the  hero  of  the  piece, 
the  candidate,  is  properly  set  aside  in  the  levelling  indistinc- 
tion  of  the  day,  one  must  look  for  him  to  find  him,)  nothing  to 
detain  the  eye  from  passing  from  part  to  part,  where  every  part 
is  alike  instinct  with  life,  for  here  are  no  furniture-faces,  no 
IfigUreS  broUght  in  to  fill  up  the  scene,  like  stage-choruses,  but 
all  dramatis  persona?  ;  when  he  shall  have  done  wondering  at 
all  these  faces  so  strongly  charactered,  yet  finished  with  the 
accuracy  of  the  finest  miniature ;  when  he  shall  have  done 


ON  THE  GENIUS  OK  HOGARTH.  403 

admiring  the  numberless  appendages  of  the  scene,  those  gra 
tuitous  doles  which  rich  genius  flings  into  the  heap  when  it 
has  already  done  enough,  the  over-measure  which  it  delights 
in  giving,  as  if  it  felt  its  stores  were  exhaustless  ;  the  dumb 
rhetoric  of  the  scenery — for  tables,  and  chairs,  and  joint-stools 
in  Hogarth  are  living  and  significant  things  ;  the  witticisms 
that  are  expressed  by  words,  (all  artists  but  Hogarth  have  failed 
when  they  have  endeavoured  to  combine  two  mediums  of  ex- 
pression, and  have  introduced  words  into  their  pictures,)  and  the 
unwritten  numberless  little  allusive  pleasantries  that  are  scattered 
about  ;  the  work  that  is  going  on  in  the  scene,  and  beyond  it, 
as  is  made  visible  to  the  "eye  of  mind,"  by  the  mob  which 
chokes  up  the  doorway,  and  the  sword  that  has  forced  an  en- 
trance before  its  master  :  when  he  shall  have  sufficiently  ad- 
mired this  wealth  of  genius,  let  him  fairly  say  what  is  the 
result  left  on  his  mind.  Is  it  an  impression  of  the  vileness  and 
worthlessness  of  his  species?  or  is  not  the  general  feeling 
which  remains,  after  the  individual  faces  have  ceased  to  act 
sensibly  on  his  mind,  a  kindly  one  in  favour  of  his  species  ?  was 
not  the  general  air  of  the  scene  wholesome  ?  did  it  do  the  heart 
hurt  to  be  among  it  ?  Something  of  a  riotous  spirit,  to  be  sure, 
is  there  ;  some  worldly-mindedness  in  some  of  the  faces ;  a 
Doddingtonian  smoothness  which  does  not  promise  any  super- 
fluous degree  of  sincerity  in  the  fine  gentleman  who  has  been 
the  occasion  of  calling  so  much  good  company  together  :  but 
is  not  the  general  cast  of  expression  in  the  faces  of  the  good 
sort  ?  do  they  not  seem  cut  out  of  the  good  old  rock,  substan- 
tial English  honesty?  would  one  fear  treachery  among  char- 
acters of  their  expression?  or  shall  we  call  their  honest  mir'h 
and  seldom-returning  relaxation  by  the  hard  names  of  vice  and 
profligacy  ?  That  poor  country  fellow,  that  is  grasping  his 
staff,  (which,  from  that  difficulty  of  feeling  themselves  at  home 
which  poor  men  experience  at  a  feast,  he  has  never  parted  with 
since  he  came  into  the  room,)  and  is  enjoying  with  a  relish 
that  seems  to  fit  all  the  capacities  of  his  soul  the  slender  joke 
which  that  facetious  wag  his  neighbour  is  practising  upon  the 
gouty  gentleman,  whose  eyes  the  effort  to  suppress  pain  has 
made  as  round  as  rings — does  ii  shock  the  "dignity  of  human 
nature1'  to  look  at  that  man,  and  to  sympathize  with  him  in  the 
seldom-heard  joke  which  has  unbent  his  care-worn,  hard-work- 
ing visage,  and  drawn  iron  smiles  from  it  ?  or  with  that  lull- 
hearted  cobbler,  who  is  honouring  with  the  grasp  of  an  honest 
fist  the  unused  palm  of  that  annoyed  patrician,  whom  the  li- 
cense of  the  time  has  seated  next  him. 

I  can  see  nothing  "  dangerous"  in  the  contemplation  of  such 
scenes  as  this,  or   ths  Enraged  Musician,  or  the    Southivark 


404  ON  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOGARTH. 

Fair,  or  twenty  other  pleasant  prints  which  come  crowding 
in  upon  my  recollection,  in  which  the  restless  activities,  the 
diversified  bents  and  humours,  the  blameless  peculiarities  of 
men,  as  they  deserve  to  be  called,  rather  than  their  "  vices 
and  follies,"  are  held  up  in  a  laughable  point  of  view.  All 
laughter  is  not  of  a  dangerous  or  soul-hardening  tendency. 
There  is  the  petrifying  sneer  of  a  demon  which  excludes  and 
kills  love,  and  there  is  the  cordial  laughter  of  a  man  which 
implies  and  cherishes  it.  What  heart  was  ever  made  the 
worse  by  joining  in  a  hearty  laugh  at  the  simplicities  of  Sir 
Hugh  Evans  or  Parson  Adams,  where  a  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous mutually  kindles  and  is  kindled  by  a  perception  of 
the  amiable  ?  That  tumultuous  harmony  of  singers  that 
are  roaring  out  the  words,  "  The  world  shall  bow  to  the  As- 
syrian throne,"  from  the  opera  of  Judith,  in  the  third  plate  of 
the  series,  called  the  Four  Groups  of  Heads  ;  which  the  quick 
eye  of  Hogarth  must  have  struck  off  in  the  very  infancy  of 
the  rage  for  sacred  oratorios  in  this  country,  while  "  Music 
yet  was  young  ;"  when  we  have  done  smiling  at  the  deafening 
distortions  which  these  tearers  of  devotion  to  rags  and  tat- 
ters, these  takers  of  Heaven  by  storm,  in  their  boisterous 
mimicry  of  the  occupation  of  angels,  are  making — what  un- 
kindly impression  is  left  behind,  or  what  more  of  harsh  or 
contemptuous  feeling,  than  when  we  quietly  leave  Uncle 
Toby  and  Mr.  Shandy  riding  their  hobbyhorses  about  the 
room  ?  The  conceited,  long-backed  sign-painter,  that  with  all 
the  self-applause  of  a  Raffaelle  or  Correggio  (the  twist  of  body 
which  his  conceit  has  thrown  him  into  has  something  of  the  Cor- 
reggeisque  in  it)  is  contemplating  the  picture  of  a  bottle  which 
he  is  drawing  from  an  actual  bottle  that  hangs  beside  him,  in 
the  print  of  Beer-street — while  we  smile  at  the  enormity  of 
the  self-delusion,  can  we  help  loving  the  good-humour  and 
self-complacency  of  the  fellow  1  would  we  willingly  wake 
him  from  his  dream  ? 

I  say  not  that  all  the  ridiculous  subjects  of  Hogarth  have 
necessarily  something  in  them  to  make  us  like  them :  some 
are  indifferent  to  us,  some  in  their  natures  repulsive,  and  only 
made  interesting  by  the  wonderful  skill  and  truth  to  nature  in  the 
painter  ;  but  I  contend  that  there  is  in  most  of  them  that  sprink- 
ling of  the  better  nature,  which,  like  holy  water,  chases  away 
and  disperses  the  contagion  of  the  bad.  They  have  this  in 
them  besides,  that  they  bring  us  acquainted  with  the  every- 
day human  face — they  give  us  skill  to  detect  those  gradations 
of  sense  and  virtue  (which  escape  the  careless  or  fastidious 
observer)  in  the  countenances  of  the  world  about  us  ;  and 
prevent  that  disgust  at  common  life,  that  tadium  quotidianarum 


ON  THE  POETICAL  WORKS  OF  GEORGE  WITHER.    405 

formarum,  which  an  unrestricted  passion  for  ideal  forms  and 
beauties  is  in  danger  of  producing.  In  this,  as  in  many  other 
things,  they  are  analogous  to  the  best  novels  of  Smollett  or 
Fielding. 


ON  THE  POETICAL  WORKS  OF  GEORGE  WITHER. 

The  poems  of  G.  Wither  are  distinguished  by  a  hearty 
homeliness  of  manner,  and  a  plain  moral  speaking.  He  seems 
to  have  passed  his  life  in  one  continued  act  of  an  innocent 
self-pleasing.  That  which  he  calls  his  Motto  is  a  continued 
self-eulogy  of  two  thousand  lines,  yet  we  read  it  to  the  end 
without  any  feeling  of  distaste,  almost  without  a  consciousness 
that  we  have  been  listening  all  the  while  to  a  man  praising 
himself.  There  are  none  of  the  cold  particles  in  it,  the  hard- 
ness and  self-ends  which  render  vanity  and  egotism  hateful. 
He  seems  to  be  praising  another  person,  under  the  mask  of 
self:  or  rather  we  feel  that  it  was  indifferent  to  him  where  he 
found  the  virtue  which  he  celebrates  ;  whether  another's 
bosom,  or  his  own,  were  its  chosen  receptacle.  His  poems 
are  full,  and  this  in  particular  is  one  downright  confession,  of 
a  generous  self-seeking.  But  by  self  he  sometimes  means  a 
great  deal — his  friends,  his  principles,  his  country,  the  human 
race. 

Whoever  expects  to  find  in  the  satirical  pieces  of  this  wri- 
ter any  of  those  peculiarities  which  pleased  him  in  the  satires 
of  Dryden  or  Pope,  will  be  grievously  disappointed.  Here 
are  no  high-finished  characters,  no  nice  traits  of  individual 
nature,  few  or  no  personalities.  The  game  run  down  is 
coarse  general  vice,  or  folly  as  it  appears  in  classes.  A  liar, 
a  drunkard,  a  coxcomb,  is  stripped  and  whipped;  no  Shaftes- 
bury, no  Villiers,  or  Wharton  is  curiously  anatomized  and 
read  upon.  But  to  a  well-natured  mind  there  is  a  charm  of 
moral  sensibility  running  through  them  which  amply  compen- 
sates the  want  of  those  luxuries.  Wither  seems  everywhere 
bursting  with  a  love  of  goodness,  and  a  hatred  of  all  low  and 
base  actions.  At  this  day  it  is  hard  to  discover  what  parts  in 
the  poem  here  particularly  alluded  to,  Abuses  Stripped  and 
Whipped,  could  have  occasioned  the  imprisonment  oflhe  au- 
thor. Was  vice  in  high  places  more  suspicious  than  now  ? 
had  she  more  power  ;  or  more  leisure  to  listen  after  ill  re- 
ports ?     That  a  man  should  be  convicted  of  a  libel  when  he 


406  ON    THE    POETICAL    WORKS    OF 

named  no  names  but  Hate,  and  Envy,  and  Lust,  and  Avarice, 
is  like  one  of  the  endictments  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  where 
Faithful  is  arraigned  for  having  "  railed  on  our  noble  Prince 
Beelzebub,  and  spoken  contemptibly  of  his  honourable  friends, 
the  Lord  Old  Man,  the  Lord  Carnal  Delight,  and  the  Lord 
Luxurious."  What  unlucky  jealousy  could  have  tempted  the 
great  men  of  those  days  to  appropriate  such  innocent  abstrac- 
tions to  themselves ! 

Wither  seems  to  have  contemplated  to  a  degree  of  idolatry 
his  own  possible  virtue.  He  is  for  ever  anticipating  persecu- 
tion and  martyrdom ;  fingering,  as  it  were,  the  flames,  to  try 
how  he  can  bear  them.  Perhaps  his  premature  defiance  some- 
times made  him  obnoxious  to  censures  which  he  would  other- 
wise have  slipped  by. 

The  homely  versification  of  these  satires  is  not  likely  to 
attract  in  the  present  day.  It  is  certainly  not  such  as  we 
should  expect  from  a  poet  "  soaring  in  the  high  region  of  his 
fancies  with  his  garland  and  his  singing  robes  about  him  ;"*  nor 
is  it  such  as  he  has  shown  in  his  Philarete,  and  in  some  parts 
of  his  Shepherds  Hunting.  He  seems  to  have  adopted  this 
dress  with  voluntary  humility,  as  fittest  for  a  moral  teacher, 
as  our  divines  choose  sober  gray  or  black  ;  but  in  their  hu- 
mility consists  their  sweetness.  The  deepest  tone  of  moral 
feeling  in  them  (though  all  throughout  is  weighty,  earnest,  and 
passionate)  is  in  those  pathetic  injunctions  against  shedding 
of  blood  in  quarrels,  in  the  chapter  entitled  Revenge.  The 
story  of  his  own  forbearance,  which  follows,  is  highly  interest- 
ing. While  the  Christian  sings  his  own  victory  over  Anger, 
the  Man  of  Courage  cannot  help  peeping  out  to  let  you  know, 
that  it  was  some  higher  principle  than  fear  which  counselled 
this  forbearance. 

Whether  encaged,  or  roaming  at  liberty,  Wither  never  seems 
to  have  abated  a  jot  of  that  free  spirit  which  sets  its  mark  upon 
his  writings,  as  much  as  a  predominant  feature  of  independ- 
ence impresses  every  page  of  our  late  glorious  Burns  ;  but 
the  elder  poet  wraps  his  proof-armour  closer  about  him,  the 
other  wears  his  too  much  outward  ;  he  is  thinking  too  much 
of  annoying  the  foe,  to  be  quite  easy  within  ;  the  spiritual  tie- 
fences  of  Wither  are  a  perpetual  source  of  inward  sunshine, 
the  magnanimity  of  the  modern  is  not  without  its  alloy  of  sore- 
ness, and  a  sense  of  injustice,  which  seems  perpetually  to 
gall  and  irritate.  Wither  was  better  skilled  in  the  "  sweet 
uses  of  adversity,"  he  knew  how  to  extract  the  "  precious  jewel" 
from  the  head  of  the  "  toad,"  without  drawing  any  of  the  "  ugly 

*  Milton. 


GEORGE    WITHER.  407 

venom"  along  with  it.  The  prison  notes  of  Wither  are  finer 
than  the  wood  notes  of  most  of  Ins  poetical  brethren.  The 
description  in  the  Fourth  Eglogue  of  his  Shepherds  Hunting 
(which  was  composed  during  his  imprisonment  in  the  Marshal- 
sea)  of  the  power  of  the  muse  to  extract  pleasure  from  com- 
mon objects,  has  been  oftener  quoted,  and  is  more  known, 
than  any  part  of  his  writings.  Indeed,  the  whole  Eglogue  is 
in  a  strain  so  much  above  not  only  what  himself,  but  almost 
what  any  other  poet  has  written,  that  he  himself  could  not 
help  noticing  it;  he  remarks,  that  his  spirits  had  been  raised 
higher  than  they  were  wont  "  through  the  love  of  poesy." 
The  praises  of  poetry  have  been  often  sung  in  ancient  and  in 
modern  times  ;  strange  powers  have  been  ascribed  to  it  of  in- 
fluence over  animate  and  inanimate  auditors  ;  its  force  over 
fascinated  crowds  has  been  acknowledged  ;  but,  before  Wither, 
no  one  ever  celebrated  its  power  at  home,  the  wealth  and  the 
strength  which  this  divine  gift  confers  upon  its  possessor. 
Fame,  and  that,  too,  after  death,  was  all  which  hitherto  the 
poets  had  promised  themselves  from  their  art.  It  seems  to 
have  been  left  to  Wither  to  discover,  that  poetry  was  a  present 
possession,  as  well  as  a  rich  reversion,  and  that  the  muse  had 
promise  of  both  lives,  of  this,  and  of  that  which  was  to  come. 

The  Mistress  of  Philarete  is  in  substance  a  panegyric  pro- 
tracted through  several  thousand  lines  in  the  mouth  of  a  single 
speaker,  but  diversified  so  as  to  produce  an  almost  dramatic 
effect,  by  the  artful  introduction  of  some  ladies,  who  are  rather 
auditors  than  interlocutors  in  the  scene  ;  and  of  a  boy,  whose 
singing  furnishes  pretence  for  an  occasional  change  of  metre  : 
though  the  seven-syllable  line,  in  which  the  main  part  of  it 
is  written,  is  that  in  which  Wither  has  shown  himself  so 
great  a  master,  that  I  do  not  know  that  I  am  always  thankful 
to  him  for  the  exchange. 

Wither  has  chosen  to  bestow  upon  the  lady  whom  he  com- 
mends the  name  of  Arete,  or  Virtue  ;  and,  assuming  to  him- 
self the  character  of  Philarete,  or  Lover  of  Virtue,  there  is  a 
sort  of  propriety  in  that  heaped  measure  of  perfections,  which 
he  attributes  to  this  partly  real,  partly  allegorical  personage. 
Drayton  before  him  had  shadowed  his  mistress  under  the 
name  of  Idea,  or  Perfect  Pattern,  and  some  of  the  old  Italian 
love-strains  are  couched  in  such  religious  terms  as  to  make  it 
doubtful,  whether  it  be  a  mistress  or  Divine  Grace  which 
the  poet  is  addressing. 

In  this  poem  (full  of  beauties)  there  are  two  passages  of 
pre-eminent  merit.  The  first  is  where  the  lover,  after  a  flight 
of  rapturous   commendation,   expresses  his    wonder  why  all 


408  ON    THE    POETICAL    WORKS    OF 

men  that,  are  about  his  mistress,  even  to   her  very  servants, 
do  not  view  her  with  the  same  eye  that  he  does. 

"  Sometimes  I  do  admire 
All  men  burn  not  with  desire : 
Nay,  I  muse  her  servants  are  not 
Pleading  love  ;  but  oh  !  they  dare  not. 
And  I  therefore>M(-onder  why 
They  do  not  grow  sick  and  die. 
Sure  they  would  do  so,  but  that, 
By  the  ordinance  of  fate, 
There  is  some  concealed  thing, 
So  each  gazer  limiting, 
He  can  see  no  more  of  merit, 
Than  beseems  his  worth  and  spirit. 
For  in  her  a  grace  there  shines, 
That  o'erdaring  thoughts  confines, 
Making  worthless  men  despair 
To  be  loved  of  one  so  fair. 
Yea,  the  destinies  agree, 
Some  good  judgments  blind  should  be 
And  not  gain  the  power  of  knowing 
Those  rare  beauties  in  her  growing. 
Reason  doth  as  much  imply  : 
For  if  every  judging  eye, 
Which  beholdeth  her,  should  there 
Find  what  excellences  are, 
All,  o'ercome  by  those  perfections, 
Would  be  captive  to  affections. 
So,  in  happiness  unbless'd, 
She  for  lovers  should  not  rest." 

The  other  is,  where  he  has  been  comparing  her  beauties 
to  gold,  and  stars,  and  the  most  excellent  things  in  nature  ; 
and,  fearing  to  be  accused  of  hyperbole,  the  common  charge 
against  poets,  vindicates  himself  by  boldly  taking  upon  him, 
that  these  comparisons  are  no  hyperboles  ;  but  that  the  best 
things  in  nature  do,  in  a  lover's  eye,  fall  short  of  those  excel- 
lences which  he  adores  in  her. 

"  What  pearls,  what  rubies  can 
Seem  so  lovely  fair  to  man, 
As  her  lips  whom  he  doth  love, 
When  in  sweet  discourse  they  move, 
Or  her  lovelier  teeth,  the  while 
She  doth  bless  him  with  a  smile  1 
Stars  indeed  fair  creatures  be  ; 
Yet  among  us  where  is  he 
Joys  not  more  the  while  he  lies 
Sunning  in  his  mistress'  eyes, 
Than  in  all  the  glimmering  light 
Of  a  starry  winter's  night  1 
Note  the  beauty  of  an  eye — 
And  if  aught  you  praise  it  by 
Leave  such  passion  in  your  mind, 
Let  my  reason's  eye  be  blind. 
Mark  if  ever  red  or  white 
Anywhere  gave  such  delight. 
As  when  they  have  taken  place 
In  a  worthy  woman's  face. 


GEORGE    WITHER  409 


I  must  praise  her  as  I  may, 
Which  1  do  mine  own  rude  way, 
Sometime  setting  i<>rt li  bei  glories 
By  unheard-ol  allegories,"  &c. 

To  the  measure  in  which  these  lines  are  written,  the  wits 
of  Queen  Anne's  days  contemptuously  gave  the  name  ol'JVamby 
Pamby,  in  ridicule  of  Ambrose  Phillips,  who  has  used  it  in  some 
instances,  as  in  the  lines  on  Cuzzoni,  to  my  feeling  at  least, 
very  deliriously  ;  but  Wither,  whose  darling  measure  it  seems 
to  have  been,  may  show,  that  in  skilful  hands  it  is  capable  of 
expressing  the  subtlest  movements  of  passion.  So  true  it  is, 
which  Drayton  seems  to  have  felt,  that  it  is  the  poet  who 
modifies  the  metre,  not  the  metre  the  poet ;  in  his  own  words, 
that 

"  It's  possible  to  climb, 
To  kindle,  or  to  Blake  ; 
Although  in  Skelton's  rhimc."* 

*  A  long  line  is  a  line  we  are  long  repeating.     In  the  Shepherds  Hunti,  g 
take  the  following — 

"  If  thy  verse  doth  bravely  tower 
As  she  makes  wing,  she  gets  power  ; 
Yet  the  higher  she  doth  soar, 
She's  affronted  still  the  more, 
Till  she  to  the  high'st  hath  pass'd, 
Then  she  rests  with  fame  at  last." 

What  longer  measure  can  go  beyond  the  majesty  of  this  !  what  Alexandrine 
is  half  so  long  in  pronouncing,  or  expresses  labour  slowly  but  strongly  surmount- 
ing difficulty  witli  the  life  with  which  it  is  done  in  the  second  of  these  lines  ? 
or  what  metre  could  go  beyond  these,  from  Philarete— 

"  Her  true  beauty  leaves  behind 
Apprehensions  in  my  mind 
Of  more  sweetness,  than  all  art 
Or  inventions  can  impart. 
Thoughts  too  deep  to  be  expressed, 
And  too  strong  to  be  svppress'd." 

s 


LETTERS, 

UNDER  ASSUMED  SIGNATURES,  PUBLISHED  IN 

THE    REFLECTOR. 


THE  LONDONER. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector. 

Mr.  Reflector — I  was  born  under  the  shadow  of  St.  Dun- 
stan's  steeple,  just  where  the  conflux  of  the  eastern  and  western 
inhabitants  of  this  twofold  city  meet  and  justle  in  friendly  op- 
position at  Temple-bar.  The  same  day  which  gave  me  to 
the  world,  saw  London  happy  in  the  celebration  of  her  great 
annual  feast.  This  I  cannot  help  looking  upon  as  a  lively 
omen  of  the  future  great  good-will  which  I  was  destined  to  bear 
towards  the  city,  resembling  in  kind  that  solicitude  which 
every  chief  magistrate  is  supposed  to  feel  for  whatever  con- 
cerns her  interests  and  well-being.  Indeed,  I  consider  myself 
in  some  sort  a  speculative  lord  mayor  of  London  :  for  though 
circumstances  unhappily  preclude  me  from  the  hope  of  ever 
arriving  at  the  dignity  of  a  gold  chain  and  spital  sermon,  yet 
thus  much  will  I  say  of  myself  in  truth,  that  Whittington  with 
his  cat  (just  emblem  of  vigilance  and  a  furred  gown)  never 
went  beyond  me  in  affection  which  I  bear  to  the  citizens. 

I  was  born,  as  you  have  heard,  in  a  crowd.  This  has  begot 
in  me  an  entire  affection  for  that  way  of  life,  amounting  to  an 
almost  insurmountable  aversion  from  solitude  and  rural  scenes. 
This  aversion  was  never  interrupted  or  suspended,  except  for 
a  few  vears  in  the  younger  part  of  my  life,  during  a  period  in 
which  I  had  set  my  affections  upon  a  charming  young  woman. 
Every  man,  while  the  passion  is  upon  him,  is  for  a  time  at 
least  addicted  to  groves,  and  meadows,  and  purling  streams. 
During  this  short  period  of  my  existence,  1  contracted  just 
familiarity  -enough  with  rural  objects  to  understand  tolerably 
well  ever  after  the  poets,  when  they  declaim  in  such  passionate 
terms  in  favour  of  a  country  life. 

For  my  own  part,  now  the  fit  is  past,  I  have  no  hesitation 
S2 


412  THE    LONDONER 

in  declaring,  that  a  mob  of  happy  faces  crowding  op  at  the  pit 
door  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  just  at  the  hour  of  s>ix,  gives  ine 
ten  thousand  sincerer  pleasures  than  I  could  ever  receive 
from  all  the  flocks  of  silly  sheep  that  ever  whitened  the  plains 
of  Arcadia  or  Epsom  Downs. 

This  passion  for  crowds  is  nowhere  feasted  so  full  as  in 
London.  The  man  must  have  a  rare  recipe  for  melancholy 
who  can  be  dull  in  Fleet-street.  I  am  naturally  inclined  to 
hypochondria,  but  in  London  it  vanishes,  like  all  other  ills. 
Often,  when  I  have  felt  a  weariness  or  distaste  at  home,  have 
I  rushed  out  into  her  crowded  Strand,  and  fed  my  humour,  till 
tears  have  wette rj  my  cheek  for  inutterable  sympathies  witli 
the  multitudinous  moving  picture,  which  she  never  fails  to 
present  at  all  hours,  like  the  scenes  of  a  shifting  pantomime. 

The  very  deiormities  of  London,  which  give  distaste  to 
others,  from  habit  do  not  displease  me.  The  endless  succes- 
sion of  shops  where  fancy  miscalled  folly  is  supplied  with  per- 
petual gauds  and  toys,  excite  in  me  no  Puritanical  aversion. 
I  gladly  behold  every  appetite  supplied  with  its  proper  food. 
The  obliging  customer,  and  the  obliged  tradesman — things 
which  live  by  bowing,  and  things  which  exist  but  for  homage 
— do  not  affect  me  with  disgust;  from  habit  I  perceive  nothing 
but  urbanity,  where  other  men,  more  refined,  discover  mean- 
ness :  I  love  the  very  smoke  of  London,  because  it  has  been 
the  medium  mosi  familiar  to  my  vision.  I  see  grand  principles 
of  honour  at  work  in  the  dirty  ring  which  encompasses  two 
combatants  with  fists,  and  principles  of  no  less  eternal  justice 
in  the  detection  of  a  pickpocket.  The  salutary  astonishment 
with  which  an  execution  is  surveyed,  convinces  me  more  for- 
cibly than  a  hundred  volumes  of  abstract  polity,  that  the  uni- 
versal instinct  of  man  in  all  ages  has  leaned  to  order  and  good 
government. 

Thus  an  art  o1'  extracting  morality  from  the  commonest  in- 
cidents of  a  town  life,  is  attained  by  the  same  well-natured 
alchymy  with  which  the  Foresters  of  Arden,  in  a  beautiful 
country, 

"  Found  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything." 

Where  has  spleen  her  food  but  in  London  !  Humour,  interest, 
curiosity,  suck  at  her  measureless  breasts  without  a  possibil- 
ity of  being  satiated.  Nursed  amid  her  noise,  her  crowds, 
her  beloved  smoke,  what  have  I  been  doing  all  my  life,  if  I 
have  not  lent  out  my  heart  with  usury  to  such  scenes  ! 
I  am,  sir,  yo6r  faithful  servant, 

A  Londoner. 


ON    BURIAL    SOCIETIES.  413 


ON  BURIAL  SOCIETIES; 

AND  THE  CHARACTER  OF  AX  UNDERTAKER. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector. 

Mr.  Reflector — I  was  amused  the  other  day  with  having 
the  following  notice  thrust  into  my  hand  by  a  man  who  gives 
out  bills  at  the  comer  of  Fleet-market.  Whether  he  saw  any 
prognostics  about  me,  that  made  him  judge  such  notice  sea- 
sonable. I  cannot  say  ;  I  might,  perhaps,  carry  in  a  countenance 
(naturally  not  very  ilorid)  traces  of  a  fever  which  had  not  long 
left  me.  Those  fellows  have  a  good  instinctive  way  of  gues- 
sing at  the  sort  of  people  that  are  likeliest  to  pay  attention  to 
their  papers. 

4<  BURIAL    SOCIETY. 

"  A  favourable  opportunity  now  offers  to  any  person,  of 
either  sex,  who  would  wish  to  be  buried  in  a  genteel  manner, 
by  paying  one  shilling  entrance,  and  twopence  per  week  for 
the  benefit  of  She  stock.  Members  to  be  free  in  six  months. 
The  money  to  be  paid  at  Mr.  Middleton's,  at  the  sign  of  the 
First  and  the  Last,  Stonecutter's-street,  Fleet-market.  The 
deceased  to  be  furnished  as  follows  : — A  strong  elm  coffin, 
covered  with  superfine  black,  and  finished  with  two  rows,  all 
round,  close  drove,  best  japanned  nails,  and  adorned  with  or- 
namental drops,  a  handsome  plate  of  inscription,  angel  above 
and  flower  beneath,  and  four  pairs  of  handsome  handles,  with 
wrought  gripes  ;  the  coffin  to  be  well  pitched,  lined,  and  ruf- 
fled with  fine  crape  ;  a  handsome  crape  shroud,  cap,  and  pil- 
low. For  use,  a  handsome  velvet  pall,  three  gentlemen's 
cloaks,  three  crape  hat-bands,  three  hoods  and  scarfs,  and  six 
pairs  of  gloves  ;  two  porters  equipped  to  attend  the  funeral,  a 
man  to  attend  the  same  with  band  and  gloves  ;  also,  the  burial 
fees  paid,  if  not  exceeding  one  guinea." 

'•.Man,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "is  a  noble  animal, 
splendid  in  ashes,  and  pompous  in  the  gave."  Whoever 
drew  up  this  little  advertisement  Certain!)  understood  this 
appetite  in  the  species,  and  has  made  abundant  provision  for 
it.  It  really  almost  induces  a  tedium  vita  upon  one  to  read 
it.  Melhiuks  I  could  be  willing  to  die,  in  death  to  be  so  al- 
35* 


414  ON  burial  societies;  and  the 

tended.  The  two  rows  all  round  close-drove  best  black  ja- 
panned nails — how  feelingly  do  they  invite  and  almost  irre- 
sistibly persuade  us  to  come  and  be  fastened  down  !  what 
aching  head  can  resist  the  temptation  to  repose,  which  the 
crape  shroud,  the  cap,  and  the  pillow  present  1  what  sting  is 
there  in  death,  which  the  handles  with  wrought  gripes  are  not 
calculated  to  pluck  away  ?  what  victory  in  the  grave,  which 
the  drops  and  the  velvet  pall  do  not  render  at  least  extremely 
disputable?  but,  above  all,  the  pretty  emblematic  plate  with 
the  angel  above  and  the  flower  beneath  takes  me  mightily. 

The  notice  goes  on  to  inform  us,  that  though  the  society 
has  been  established  but  a  very  few  years,  upwards  of  eleven 
hundred  persons  have  put  down  their  names.  It  is  really  an 
affecting  consideration  to  think  of  so  many  poor  people,  of  the 
industrious  and  hard-working  class,  (for  none  but  such  would 
be  possessed  of  such  a  generous  forethought,)  clubbing  their 
twopences  to  save  the  reproach  of  a  parish  funeral.  Many  a 
poor  fellow,  I  dare  swear,  has  that  angel  and  flower  kept 
from  the  Angel  and  Punch-bowl,  while,  to  provide  himself  a  bier, 
he  has  curtailed  himself  of  £m\  Many  a  savoury  morsel  has 
the  living  body  been  deprived  of,  that  the  lifeless  one  might  be 
served  up  in  a  richer  state  to  the  worms.  And  sure,  if  the 
body  could  understand  the  actions  of  the  soul,  and  entertain 
generous  notions  of  things,  it  would  thank  its  provident  part- 
ner, that,  she  had  been  more  solicitous  to  defend  it  from  dis- 
honours at  its  dissolution,  than  careful  to  pamper  it  with  good 
things  in  the  time  of  its  union.  If  Caesar  were  chiefly  anx- 
ious at  his  death  how  he  might  die  most  decently,  every  buri- 
al society  may  be  considered  as  a  club  of  Coesars. 

Nothing  tends  to  keep  up,  in  the  imaginations  of  the  poor- 
er sort  of  people,  a  generous  horror  of  the  workhouse  more 
than  the  manner  in  which  pauper  funerals  are  conducted  in 
this  metropolis.  The  coffin  nothing  but  a  few  naked  planks 
coarsely  put  together — the  want  of  a  pall,  (that  decent  and 
well-imagined  veil,  which,  hiding  the  coffin  that  hides  the 
body,  keeps  that  which  would  shock  us  at  two  removes  from 
us),  the  coloured  coats  of  the  men  that  are  hired,  at  cheap 
rates,  to  carry  the  body— altogether,  give  the  notion  of  the 
deceased  having  been  some  person  of  an  ill  life  and  conversa- 
tion, some  one  who  may  not  claim  the  entire  rites  of  Chris- 
tian burial — one  by  whom  some  parts  of  the  sacred  ceremony 
would  be  desecrated  if  they  should  be  bestowed  upon  him.  I 
meet  these  meager  processions  sometimes  in  the  street.  They 
are  sure  to  make  me  out  of  humour  and  melancholy  all  the 
day  after.      They  have  a  harsh  and  ominous  aspect. 

If  there  is  anything  in  thu  prospectus  issued  from  Mr.  Mid- 


CHARACTER  OF  AN  UNDERTAKER.        415 

dlcton's,  Stonecutter's-street,  which  pleases  me  less  than  the 
rest,  it  is  to  find,  that  the  six  pairs  of  "loves  are  to  be  returned, 
that  they  are  only  lent,  or,  as  the  bill  expresses  it,  for  use,  on 
the  occasion.  The  hood,  scarfs,  and  hatbands  may  properly 
enough  be  given  up  after  the  solemnity  :  the  cloaks  no  gen- 
tleman would  think  of  keeping;  but  a  pair  of  gloves,  once 
fitted  on,  ought  not  in  courtesy  to  be  redemanded.  The 
wearer  should  certainly  have  the  fee-simple  of  them.  The 
cost  would  be  but  trifling,  and  they  would  be  a  proper  me- 
morial of  the  day.  This  part  of  the  proposal  wants  reconsider- 
ing. It  is  not  conceived  in  the  same  liberal  way  of  thinking 
as  the  rest.  I  am  also  a  little  doubtful  whether  the  limit, 
within  which  the  burial-fee  is  made  payable,  should  not  be 
extended  to  thirty  shillings. 

Some  provision,  too,  ought  undoubtedly  to  be  made  in  favour 
of  those  well-intentioned  persons  and  well-wishers  to  the 
fund,  who,  having  all  along  paid  their  subscriptions  regularly, 
are  so  unfortunate  as  to  die  before  the  six  months,  which 
would  entitle  them  to  their  freedom,  are  quite  completed.  One 
can  hardly  imagine  a  more  distressing  case  than  that  of  a  poor 
fellow  lingering  on  in  a  consumption  till  the  period  of  his  free- 
dom is  almost  in  sight,  and  then  finding  himself  going  with  a 
velocity  which  makes  it  doubtful  whether  he  shall  be  entitled 
to  his  funeral  honours  :  his  quota  to  which  he  nevertheless 
squeezes  out,  to  the  diminution  of  the  comforts  which  sick- 
ness demands.  I  think,  in  such  cases,  some  of  the  contribu- 
tion-money ought  to  revert.  With  some  such  modifications, 
which  might  easily  be  introduced,  I  see  nothing  in  these  pro- 
posals of  Mr.  iMiddleton  which  is  not  strictly  fair  and  genteel; 
and  heartily  recommend  them  to  all  persons  of  moderate  in- 
comes, in  either  sex,  who  are  willing  that  this  perishable 
part  of  them  should  quit  the  scene  of  its  mortal  activities 
with  as  handsome  circumstances  as  possible. 

Before  I  quit  the  subject,  I  must  guard  my  readers  against 
a  scandal  which  they  may  be  apt  to  take  at  the  place  whence 
these  proposals  purport  to  be  issued.  From  the  sign  of  the 
First  and  the  Last,  they  may  conclude  that  Mr.  Middleton  is 
some  publican,  who,  in  assembling  a  club  of  this  description 
at  his  house,  may  have  a  sinister  end  of  his  own,  altogether 
foreign  to  the  solemn  purpose  for  which  the  club  is  pretended 
to  be  instituted.  I  must  set  them  right  by  informing  tliein 
that  the  issuer  of  these,  proposals  is  no  publican,  though  he 
hangs  out  a  sign,  but  an  honest  superintendent  of  funerals, 
who,  by  the  device  of  a  cradle  and  a  coffin,  connecting  both 
ends  of  human  existence  together,  has  most  ingeniously  con- 
trived to  insinuate,  that  the  framers  of  these  first  and  last  re- 


416  ON    BURIAL    SOCIETIES  ;    AND    THE 

ceptacles  of  mankind  divide  this  our  life  between  them,  and 
that  all  that  passes  from  the  midwife  to  the  undertaker  may, 
in  strict  propriety,  go  for  nothing :  an  awful  and  instructive 
lesson  to  human  vanity. 

Looking  over  some  papers  lately  that  fell  into  my  hands 
by  chance,  and  appear  to  have  been  written  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  century,  I  stumbled,  among  the  rest,  upon  the 
following  short  essay,  which  the  writer  calls  "  The  Character 
of  an  Undertaker.''''  It  is  written  with  some  stiffness  and  pe- 
culiarities of  style ;  but  some  parts  of  it,  I  think,  not  unaptly 
characterize  the  profession  to  which  Mr.  Middle  ton  has  the 
honour  to  belong.  The  writer  doubtless  had  in  his  mind  the 
entertaining  character  of  Sable,  in  Steele's  excellent  comedy 
of  the  Funeral. 

CHARACTER  OF  AN  UNDERTAKER. 

"  He  is  master  of  the  ceremonies  at  burials  and  mourning 
assemblies,  grand  marshal  at  funeral  processions,  the  only 
true  yeoman  of  the  body,  over  which  he  exercises  a  dicta- 
torial authority  from  the  moment  that  the  breath  has  taken 
leave  to  that  of  its  final  commitment  to  the  earth.  His  min- 
istry begins  where  the  physician's,  the  lawyer's,  and  the  di- 
vine's end.  Or  if  some  part  of  the  functions  of  the  latter 
run  parallel  with  his,  it  is  only  in  ordine  ad  spiritualia.  His 
temporalities  remain  unquestioned.  He  is  arbitrator  of  all 
questions  of  honour  which  may  concern  the  defunct ;  and 
upon  slight  inspection  will  pronounce  how  long  he  may  re- 
main in  this  upper  world  with  credit  to  himself,  and  when  it 
will  be  prudent  for  his  reputation  that  he  should  retire.  His 
determination  in  these  points  is  peremptory  and  without  ap- 
peal. Yet,  with  a  modesty  peculiar  to  his  profession,  he 
meddles  not  out  of  his  own  sphere.  With  the  good  or  bad 
actions  of  the  deceased  in  his  lifetime  he  has  nothing  to  do. 
He  leaves  the  friends  of  the  dead  man  to  form  their  own  con- 
jectures as  to  the  place  to  which  the  departed  spirit  is  gone. 
His  care  is  only  about  the  exuviae.  He  concerns  not  himself 
even  about  the  body,  as  it  is  a  structure  of  parts  internal,  and 
a  wonderful  microcosm.  He  leaves  such  curious  speculations 
to  the  anatomy  professor.  Or,  if  anything,  he  is  averse  to 
such  wanton  inquiries,  as  delighting  rather  that  the  parts 
which  he  has  care  of  should  be  returned  to  their  kindred  dust 
in  as  handsome  and  unmutilated  condition  as  possible  ;  that 
the  grave  should  have  its  full  and  unimpaired  tribute — a  com- 
plete and  just  carcass.  Nor  is  he  only  careful  to  provide  for 
the  body's  entireness,  but  for  its  accommodation   and  orna- 


CHARACTER  OF  AN  UNDERTAKER.        417 

ment.  lie  orders  the  fashion  of  its  clothes,  and  designs  the 
symmetry  of  its  dwelling.  Its  vanity  has  an  innocent  survi- 
val in  him.  He  is  bedmaker  to  the  dead.  The  pillows 
which  he  lays  never  rumple.  The  day  of  interment  is  the 
theatre  in  which  he  displays  the  mysteries  of  his  art.  It  is 
hard  to  describe  what  he  is,  or  rather  to  tell  what  he  is  not, 
on  that  day :  for,  being  neither  kinsman,  servant,  nor  friend, 
he  is  all  in  turns;  a  transcendent,  running  through  all  those 
relations.  His  office  is  to  supply  the  place  of  self-agency  in 
the  family,  who  are  presumed  incapable  of  it  through  grief. 
He  is  eyes,  and  ears,  and  hands  to  the  whole  household.  A 
draught  of  wine  cannot  go  round  to  the  mourners,  but  he  must 
minister  it.  A  chair  may  hardly  be  restored  to  its  place  by 
a  less  solemn  hand  than  his.  He  takes  upon  himself  all 
functions,  and  is  a  sort  of  ephemeral  major-domo  !  He  dis- 
tributes his  attentions  among  the  company  assembled  according 
to  the  degree  of  affliction,  which  he  calculates  from  the  de- 
gree of  kin  to  the  deceased ;  and  marshals  them  accordingly 
in  the  procession.  He  himself  is  of  a  sad  and  tristful  coun- 
tenance ;  yet  such  as  (if  well  examined)  is  not  without  some 
show  of  patience  and  resignation  at  bottom  ;  prefiguring,  as 
it  were,  to  the  friends  of  the  deceased  what  their  grief  shall 
be  when  the  hand  of  Time  shall  have  softened  and  taken 
down  the  bitterness  of  their  first  anguish;  so  handsomely 
can  he  foreshape  and  anticipate  the  work  of  time.  Lastly, 
■with  his  wand,  as  with  another  divining-rod,  he  calculates 
the  depth  of  earth  at  which  the  bones  of  the  dead  man  may 
rest,  which  he  ordinarily  contrives  may  be  at  such  a  distance 
from  the  surface  of  this  earth  as  may  frustrate  the  profane 
attempts  of  such  as  would  violate  his  repose,  yet  sufficiently 
on  this  side  the  centre  to  give  his  friends  hopes  of  any  easy 
and  practicable  resurrection.  And  here  we  leave  him,  casting 
in  dust  to  dust,  which  is  the  last  friendly  office  that  he  under- 
takes to  do." 

Begging  your   pardon   for    detaining   you   so  long  among 
"  graves,  and  worms,  and  epitaphs," 

I  am,  sir, 

Your  humble  servant, 

Morituru8. 


418        ON  THE  DANGER  OF  CONFOUNDING 


ON  THE  DANGER  OF  CONFOUNDING  MORAL 
WITH  PERSONAL  DEFORMITY; 

WITH    A    HINT    TO    THOSE    WHO     HAVE     THE     FRAMING     OF    AD 
VERTISEMENTS    FOR   APPREHENDING    OFFENDERS. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector . 

Mr.  Reflector — There  is  no  science  in  their  pretensions 
to  which  mankind  are  more  apt  to  commit  grievous  mistakes, 
than  in  the  supposed  very  obvious  one  of  physiognomy.  I 
quarrel  not  with  the  principles  of  this  science,  as  they  are 
laid  down  by  learned  professors ;  much  less  am  I  disposed, 
with  some  people,  to  deny  its  existence  altogether  as  any 
inlet  of  knowledge  that  can  be  depended  upon.  I  believe 
that  there  is,  or  may  be,  an  art  to  "  read  the  mind's  construc- 
tion in  the  face."  But,  then,  in  every  species  of  reading,  so 
much  depends  upon  the  eyes  of  the  reader ;  if  they  are  blear, 
or  apt  to  dazzle,  or  inattentive,  or  strained  with  too  much  at- 
tention, the  optic  power  will  infallibly  bring  home  false  re- 
ports of  what  it  reads.  How  often  do  we  say,  upon  a  cursory 
glance  at  a  stranger,  what  a  fine  open  countenance  he  has, 
who,  upon  second  inspection,  proves  to  have  the  exact  fea- 
tures of  a  knave.  Nay,  in  much  more  intimate  acquaintances, 
how  a  delusion  of  this  kind  shall  continue  for  months,  years, 
and  then  break  up  all  at  once. 

Ask  the  married  man,  who  has  been  so  but  for  a  short  space 
of  time,  if  those  blue  eyes  where,  during  so  many  years  of 
anxious  courtship,  truth,  sweetness,  serenity  seemed  to  be 
written  in  characters  Avhich  could  not  be  misunderstood — ask 
him  if  the  characters  which  they  now  convey  be  exactly  the 
same  ?  if  for  truth  he  does  not  read  a  dull  virtue  (the  mimic 
of  constancy)  which  changes  not,  only  because  it  wants  the 
judgment  to  make  a  preference  ?  if  for  sweetness  he  does  not 
read  a  stupid  habit  of  looking  pleased  at  everything  ?  if  for 
serenity  he  does  not  read  animal  tranquillity,  the  dead  pool  of 
the  heart,  which  no  breeze  of  passion  can  stir  into  health  1 
Alas  !  what  is  this  book  of  the  countenance  good  for,  which 
when  we  have  read  so  long,  and  thought  that  we  understood 
its  contents,  there  comes  a  countless  list  of  heart-breaking  er- 
rata at  the  end  ! 


MORAL    WITH    PERSONAL    DEFOUMITV.  419 

But  these  are  the  pitiable  mistakes  to  which  love  alone  is 
subject.  I  have  inadvertently  wandered  from  my  purpose, 
which  was  to  expose  quite  an  opposite  blunder,  into  which  we 
are  no  less  apt  to  fall,  through  hate.  How  ugly  a  person 
looks  upon  whose  reputation  some  awkward  aspersion  hangs, 
and  how  suddenly  his  countenance  clears  up  with  his  charac- 
ter. I  remember  being  persuaded  of  a  man  whom  1  had  con- 
ceived an  ill  opinion  of,  that  he  had  a  very  bad  set  of  teeth  ; 
which,  since  I  have  had  better  opportunities  of  being  ac- 
quainted with  his  face  and  facts,  I  find  to  have  been  the  very 
reverse  of  the  truth.  That  crooked  old  woman,  I  once  said, 
speaking  of  an  ancient  gentlewoman,  whose  actions  did  not 
square  altogether  with  my  notions  of  the  rule  of  right.  The 
unanimous  surprise'  of  the  company  before  whom  I  uttered 
these  words  soon  convinced  me  that  I  had  confounded  mental 
with  bodily  obliquity,  and  that  there  was  nothing  tortuous 
about  the  old  lady  but  her  deeds. 

This  humour  of  mankind  to  deny  personal  comeliness  to 
those  with  whose  moral  attributes  they  are  dissatisfied,  is  very 
strongly  shown  in  those  advertisements,  which  stare  us  in  the 
face  from  the  walls  of  every  street,  and,  with  the  tempting 
bait  which  they  hang  forth,  stimulate  at  once  cupidity  and  an 
abstract  love  of  justice  in  the  breast  of  every  passing  peruser  ; 
I  mean,  the  advertisements  offering  rewards  for  the  apprehen- 
sion of  absconded  culprits,  strayed  apprentices,  bankrupts  who 
have  conveyed  away  their  effects,  debtors  that  have  run  away 
from  their  bail.  I  observe,  that  in  exact  proportion  to  the  in- 
dignity with  which  the  prosecutor,  who  is  commonly  the 
framer  of  the  advertisement,  conceives  he  has  been  treated, 
the  personal  pretensions  of  the  fugitive  are  denied,  and  his  de- 
fects exaggerated. 

A  fellow  whose  misdeeds  have  been  directed  against  the 
public  in  general,  and  in  whose  delinquency  no  individual  shall 
feel  himself  particularly  interested,  generally  meets  with  fair 
usage.  A  coiner  or  a  smuggler  shall  get  off  tolerably  well. 
His  beauty,  if  he  has  any,  is  not  much  underrated,  his  de- 
formities are  not  much  magnilied.  A  runaway  apprentice, 
who  excites  perhaps  the  next  least  degree  of  spleen  in  his  pros- 
ecutor, generally  escapes  with  a  pair  of  bandy  legs  ;  if  he  has 
taken  anvthing  with  him  in  his  flight,  a  hitch  in  his  gait  is 
generally  superadded.  A  bankrupt,  who  has  been  guilty  of 
withdrawing  his  effects,  if  his  ease  be  not  very  atrocious,  com- 
monly  meets  with  mild  usage.  But  a  debtor  who  has  left  his 
bail  in  jeopardy  is  sure  to  be  described  in  characters  of  un- 
mingled  deformity.  Here  the  personal  feelings  of  the  bail, 
which  may  be  allowed  to  be  somewhat  poignant,  are  admitted 


420  THE  DANGER  OF  CONFOUNDING 

to  interfere ;  and,  as  wrath  and  revenge  commonly  strike  in 
the  dark,  the  colours  are  laid  on  with  a  grossness  which  I  am 
convinced  must  often  defeat  its  own  purpose.  The  fish  that 
casts  an  inky  cloud  about  him  that  his  enemies  may  not  finr" 
him,  cannot  more  obscure  himself  by  that  device  than  the 
blackening  representations  of  these  angry  advertisers  must  in- 
evitably serve  to  cloak  and  screen  the  persons  of  those  who 
have  injured  them  from  detection.  I  have  before  me  at  this 
moment  one  of  these  bills,  which  runs  thus  : — 

«  Fifty  Pounds  Reward. 

"  Run  away  from  his  bail,  John  Tomkins,  formerly  resident 
in  Princes-street,  Soho,  but  lately  of  CleVkenwell.  Whoever 
shall  apprehend,  or  cause  to  be  apprehended  and  lodged  in 
one  of  his  majesty's  jails,  the  said  John  Tomkins,  shall  re- 
ceive the  above  reward.  He  is  a  thickset,  sturdy  man,  about 
five  foot  six  inches  high,  halts  in  his  left  leg,  with  a  stoop  in 
his  gait,  with  coarse  red  hair,  nose  short  and  cocked  up,  with 
little  gray  eyes,  one  of  them  bears  the  effect  of  a  blow  which 
he  has  lately  received,  with  a  pot  belly,  speaks  with  a  thick 
and  disagreeable  voice,  goes  shabbily  dressed,  had  on  when 
he  went  away  a  greasy  shag  great-coat  with  rusty  yellow  but- 
tons." 

Now  although  it  is  not  out  of  the  compass  of  possibility 
that  John  Tomkins  aforesaid  may  comprehend  in  his  agreeable 
person  all  the  above-mentioned  aggregate  of  charms ;  yet, 
from  my  observation  of  the  manner  in  which  these  advertise- 
ments are  usually  drawn  up,  though  I  have  not  the  pleasure 
of  knowing  the  gentleman,  yet  would  I  lay  a  wager,  that  an 
advertisement  to  the  following  effect  would  have  a  much  bet- 
ter chance  of  apprehending  and  laying  by  the  heels  this  John 
Tomkins  than  the  above  description,  although  penned  by  one 
who,  from  the  good  services  which  he  appears  to  have  done 
for  him,  has  not  improbably  been  blessed  with  some  years  of 
previous  intercourse  with  the  said  John.  Taking,  then,  the 
above  advertisement  to  be  true,  or  nearly  so,  down  to  the  words 
"  left  leg"  inclusive,  (though  I  have  some  doubt  if  the  blemish 
there  implied  amount  to  a  positive  lameness,  or  be  perceiva- 
ble by  any  but  the  nearest  friends  of  John,)  I  would  proceed 
thus  : — 

"  Leans  a  little  forward  in  his  walk,  his  hair  thick  and  in- 
clining to  auburn,  his  nose  of  the  middle  size,  a  little  turned 
up  at  the  end,  lively  hazel  eyes,  (the  contusion,  as  its  effects 
are  probably  gone  off  by  this  time,  I  judge  better  omitted,)  in- 
clines to  be  corpulent,  his  voice  thick  but  pleasing,  especially 


MORAL  WITH  PERSONAL  DEFORMITY.        421 

when  he  sings,  had  on  a  decent  shag  great-coat  with  yellow 
butions." 

Now,  I  would  stake  a  considerable  wager  (though  by  no 
means  a  positive  man)  that  sonic  such  mitigated  description 
would  lead  the  beagles  of  the  law  into  a  much  surer  track  for 
finding  this  ungracious  varlet,  than  to  set  them  upon  a  false 
scent  after  fictitious  ugliness  and  fictitious  shabbmess  ;  though, 
to  do  those  gentlemen  justice,  I  have  no  doubt  their  experi- 
ence has  taught  them  in  all  such  cases  to  abate  a  great  deal 
of  the  deformity  which  they  are  instructed  to  expect;  and  has 
discovered  to  them  that  the  devil's  agents  upon  this  earth, 
like  their  master,  are  far  less  ugly  in  reality  than  they  are 
painted. 

I  am  afraid,  Mr.  Reflector,  that  I  shall  be  thought  to  have 
gone  wide  of  my  subject,  which  was  to  detect  the  practical 
errors  of  physiognomy,  properly  so  called;  whereas  1  have  in- 
troduced physical  defects,  such  as  lameness,  the  effects  of  ac 
ciilcnts  upon  a  man's  person,  his  wearing  apparel,  &c,  as  cir- 
cumstances on  which  the  eye  of  dislike,  looking  askance,  may 
report  erroneous  conclusions  to  the  understanding.  But  if  we 
are  liable,  through  a  kind  or  an  unkind  passion,  to  mistake  so 
grossly  concerning  things  so  exterior  and  palpable,  how  much 
more  are  we  likely  to  err  respecting  those  nicer  and  less  per- 
ceptible hints  of  character  in  a  face,  whose  detection  consti- 
tutes the  triumph  of  the  physiognomist. 

To  revert  to  those  bestowers  of  unmerited  deformity,  the 
framers  of  advertisements  for  the  apprehension  of  delinquents, 
a  sincere  desire  of  promoting  the  ends  of  public  justice,  in- 
duces me  to  address  a  word  to  them  on  the  best  means  of  at- 
taining those  ends.  I  will  endeavour  to  lay  down  a  few  prac- 
tical, or  rather  negative  rules  for  their  use,  for  my  ambition 
extends  no  further  than  to  arm  them  with  cautions  against  the 
self-defeating  of  their  own  purposes  : — 

1.  Imprimis,  then,  Mr.  Advertiser!  If  the  culprit  whom 
you  are  willing  to  recover  be  one  to  uhom  in  times  past  you 
have  shown  kindness,  and  been  disposed  to  think  kindly  of  him 
yourself,  but  he  has  deceived  your  trust,  and  has  run  away  and 
left  you  with  a  load  of  debt  to  answer  for  him,  sit  down  calinlv, 
and  endeavour  to  behold  him  through  the  spectacles  of  memory 
rather  than  of  present  conceit.  Image  to  yourself,  before  you 
pen  a  tittle  of  his  description,  the  same  plausible,  good-looking 
man  who  took  you  in  :  and  trv  to  put  awuv  from  your  mind 
every  intrusion  of  that  deceitful  spectre  which  perpetually 
obtrudes  itself  in  the  room  of  your  former  friend's  known  visage. 
It  will  do  you  more  credit  to  have  been  deceived  bv  such  a  one  ; 
and,  depend  upon  it,  the  traitor  will  convey  to  the  eyes  of  the 
36 


422        ON  THE  DANGER  OF  CONFOUNDING 

world  in  general  much  more  of  that  first  idea  which  you  formed 
(perhaps  in  part  erroneous)  of  his  physiognomy,  than  of  tha* 
frightful  substitute  which  you  have  suffered  to  creep  in  upon 
your  mind  and  usurp  upon  it ;  a  creature  which  has  no  arche- 
type except  in  your  own  brain. 

2.  If  you  be  a  master  that  have  to  advertise  a  runaway  ap- 
prentice, though  the  young  dog's  faults  are  known  only  to 
you,  and  no  doubt  his  conduct  has  been  aggravating  enough,  do 
not  presently  set  him  down  as  having  crooked  ankles.  He  may 
have  a  good  pair  of  legs,  and  run  away  notwithstanding.  In- 
deed, the  latter  does  rather  seem  to  imply  the  former. 

3.  If  the  unhappy  person  against  whom  your  laudable  ven- 
geance is  directed  be  a  thief,  think  that  a  thief  may  have  a 
good  nose,  good  eyes,  good  ears.  It  is  indispensable  to  his  pro- 
fession that  he  be  possessed  of  sagacity,  foresight,  vigilance  ; 
it  is  more  than  probable,  then,  that  he  is  endued  with  the  bodily 
types  or  instruments  of  these  qualities  to  some  tolerable  degree 
of  perfectness. 

4.  If  petty  larceny  be  his  offence,  I  exhort  you,  do  not  con- 
found meanness  of  crime  with  diminutiveness  of  stature. 
These  things  have  no  connexion.  I  have  known  a  tall  man 
stoop  to  the  basest  action,  a  short  man  aspire  to  the  height  of 
crime,  a  fair  man  be  guilty  of  the  foulest  actions,  &c. 

5.  Perhaps  the  offender  has  been  guilty  of  some  atrocious 
and  aggravated  murder.  Here  is  the  most  difficult  case  of 
all.  It  is  above  all  requisite  that  such  a  daring  violator  of 
the  peace  and  safety  of  society  should  meet  with  his  reward, 
a  violent  and  ignominious  death.  But  how  shall  we  get 
at  him  ?  Who  is  there  among  us,  that  has  known  him  be- 
fore he  committed  the  offence,  that  shall  take  upon  him  to  say 
he  can  sit  down  coolly  and  pen  a  dispassionate  description  of 
a  murderer  ?  The  tales  of  our  nursery— the  reading  of  our 
youth — the  ill-looking  man  that,  was  hired  by  the  uncle  to  de- 
spatch the  Children  in  the  Wood — the  grim  ruffians  who 
smothered  the  babes  in  the  Tower — the  black  and  beetle- 
browed  assassin  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe — the  shag-haired  villain  of 
Mr.  Monk  Lewis — the  Tarquin-tread  and  mill-stone  dropping 
eyes  of  murder  in  Shakspeare — the  exaggerations  of  picture 
and  of  poetry — what  we  have  read  and  what  we  have  dreamed 
of — rise  up  and  crowd  in  upon  us  such  eye-scaring  portraits  of 
the  man  of  blood,  that  our  pen  is  absolutely  forestalled;  we 
commence  poets  when  we  should  play  the  part  of  strictest  histo- 
rians, and  the  very  blackness  of  horror  which  the  deeii  calls  up, 
serves  as  a  cloud  to  screen  the  doer.  The  fiction  is  blameless, 
it  is  accordant  with  those  wise  prejudices  with  which  nature  has 
guarded  our  innocence,  as  with  impassable  barriers,  against  tho 


MORAL    WITH    PERSONAL    DEFOUMITV.  423 

commission  of  such  appalling  crimes  ;  but  meantime  the  crim- 
inal escapes,  or  if — owing  to  that  wise  abatement  in  their  ex- 
pectation of  deformity,  winch,  as  I  hinted  at  before,  the  officers 
of  pursuit  never  fail  to  make,  and  no  doubt  in  cases  of  this 
sort  they  make  a  more  than  ordinary  allowance — if,  owing  to 
this  or  any  accident,  the  offender  is  caught  and  brought  to  Ins 
trial,  who  that  has  been  led  out  of  curiosity  to  witness  such  a 
scene,  has  not  with  astonishment  reflected  on  the  difference 
between  a  real  committer  of  a  murder,  and  the  idea  of  one 
which  he  has  been  collecting  and  heightening  all  his  life  out 
of  books,  dreams,  &c.  The  fellow,  perhaps,  is  a  sleek,  suug- 
looking  man,  with  light  hair  and  eyebrows — the  latter  by  no 
means  jutting  out  or  like  a  crag — and  with  none  of  those 
marks  which  our  fancy  had  pre-bestowed  upon  him. 

I  find  I  am  getting  unawares  too  serious  ;  the  best  way  on 
such  occasions  is  to  leave  off,  which  I  shall  do  by  generally 
recommending  to  all  prosecuting  advertisers  not  to  confound 
crimes  with  ugliness  ;  or  rather,  to  distinguish  between  that 
physiognomical  deformity,  which  lam  willing  to  grant  always 
accompanies  crime,  and  mere  physical  ugliness — which  signi- 
fies nothing,  is  the  exponent  of  nothing,  and  may  exist  in  a 
good  or  bad  person  indifferently. 

Crito. 


ON  THE  INCONVENIENCES  RESULTING  FROM 
BEING  HANGED. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector. 

Sir — I  am  one  of  those  unhappy  persons  whose  misfor- 
tunes, it  seems,  do  not  entitle  them  to  the  benefit  of  pure  pity. 
All  that  is  bestowed  upon  me  of  that  kindest  alleviator  of  hu- 
man miseries,  comes  dashed  with  a  double  portion  of  con- 
tempt. My  griefs  have  nothing  in  them  that  is  felt  as  sacn  d 
by  the  bystanders.  Yet  is  my  affliction  in  truth  of  the  deep- 
est grain.  The  heaviest  task  that  was  ever  given  to  mortal 
patience  to  sustain.  Time,  that  wears  out  all  other  sorrows, 
can  never  modify  or  soften  mine.  Here  they  must  continue 
to  gnaw,  as  long  as  that  fatal  mark — 

Why  was  I  ever  born  ?  Why  was  innocence  in  my  person 
suffered  to  be  branded  with  a  stain  which  was  appointed  only 
fpx the  blackest  guilt  I  What  had  1  done,  or  mv  parents,  that 
a  disgrace  of  mine  should  involve  a  whole  posterity  in  infamy  ? 


424  ON   THE    INCONVENIENCES 

I  am  almost  tempted  to  believe,  that,  in  some  pre-existent 
state,  crimes  to  which  this  sublunary  life  of  mine  hath  been  as 
much  a  stranger  as  the  babe  that  is  newly  born  into  it,  have 
drawn  down  upon  me  this  vengeance,  so  disproportionate  to 
my  actions  on  this  globe. 

My  brain  sickens,  and  my  bosom  labours  to  be  delivered  of 
the  weight  that  presses  upon  it,  yet  my  conscious  pen  shrinks 
from  the  avowal     But  out  it  must — 

Oh,  Mr.  Reflector !  guess  at  the  wretch's  misery  who  now 
writes  this  to  you,  when,  with  tears  and  burning  blushes,  he 
is  obliged  to  confess  that  he  has  been hanged — 

Methinks  I  hear  an  involuntary  exclamation  burst  from  you 
as  your  imagination  presents  to  you  fearful  images  of  your 
correspondent  unknown — hanged  ! 

Fear  not,  Mr.  Editor.  No  disimbodied  spirit  has  the  hon- 
our of  addressing  you.  I  am  flesh  and  blood,  an  unfortunate 
system  of  bones,  muscles,  sinews,  arteries,  like  yourself. 

Then,  I  presume,  you  mean  to  be  pleasant — that  expression 
of  yours,  Mr.  Correspondent,  must  be  taken  somehow  in  a  met 
aphorical  sense. 

In  the  plainest  sense,  without  trope  or  figure — yes,  Mr. 
Editor  !  this  neck  of  mine  has  felt  the  fatal  noose,  these  hands 
have  tremblingly  held  up  the  corroborative  prayer-book,  these 
lips  have  sucked  the  moisture  of  the  last  consolatory  orange, 
this  tongue  has  chanted  the  doleful  cantata  which  no  per- 
former has  ever  been  called  upon  to  repeat,  this  face  has  had 
the  veiling  nightcap  drawn  over  it — 

But  for  no  crime  of  mine.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  arraign 
the  justice  of  my  country,  which,  though  tardy,  did  at  length 
recognise  my  innocence.  It  is  not  for  me  to  reflect  upon 
judge  or  jury,  now  that  eleven  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
erroneous  sentence  was  pronounced.  Men  will  always  be 
fallible,  and  perhaps  circumstances  did  appear  at  the  time  a 
little  strong. 

Suffice  it  to  say,  that  after  hanging  four  minutes,  (as  the 
spectators  were  pleased  to  compute  it — a  man  that  is  being 
strangled,  I  know  from  experience,  has  altogether  a  different 
measure  of  time  from  his  friends  who  are  breathing  leisurely 
about  him — I  suppose  the  minutes  lengthen  as  time  approaches 
eternity,  in  the  same  manner  as  miles  get  longer  as  you  travel 
northward,)  after  hanging  four  minutes,  according  to  the  best 
calculation  of  the  bystanders,  a  reprieve  came,  and  I  was  cut 
down — 

Really  I  am  ashamed  of  deforming  your  pages  with  these 
technical  phrases — if  I  knew  how  to  express  my  meaning 
shorter — 


RESULTING    FROM    BEING    HANGED.  425 

But  to  proceed.  My  first  care  after  1  had  been  brought  to 
myself  by  the   usual   methods,  (those   methods  that   arc  bo 

interesting  to  the  operator  and  his  assistants,  who  are  pretty 
numerous  on  such  occasions,  but  which  no  patient  was  ever 
deSirous  of  undergoing  a  second  time  for  Ihe  benefit  of  sci- 
ence,) my  first  care  was  to  provide  myself  with  an  enor- 
mous stock  or  cravat  to  hide  the  place — you  understand  me  ; 
my  next  care  was  to  procure  a  residence  as  distant  as  possi- 
ble from  that  part  of  the  country  where  I  had  Buffered.  For, 
that  reason  I  chose  the  metropolis,  as  the  place  where  wiund- 
ed  honour  (I  had  been  told)  could  lurk  with  the  least  danger 
of  exciting  inquiry,  and  stigmatized  innocence  had  the  best 
chance  of  hiding  her  disgrace  in  a  crowd.  I  sought  out  a 
new  circle  of  acquaintance,  and  my  circumstances  happily  en- 
abling me  to  pursue  my  fancy  in  that  respect,  I  endeavoured, 
by  mingling  in  all  the  pleasures  which  the  town  affords,  to 
efface  the  memory  of  what  I  had  undergone. 

Hut  alas  !  such  is  the  portentous  and  all-pervading  chain  of 
connexion  which  links  together  the  head  and  members  of  this 
great  community,  my  scheme  of  lying  perdu  was  defeated  almost 
at  the  outset.  A  countryman  of  mine,  whom  a  foolish  lawsuit 
had  brought  to  town,  by  chance  met  me,  and  the  secret  was 
soon  blazoned  about. 

In  a  short  time  I  found  myself  deserted  by  most  of  those 
who  had  been  my  intimate  friends.  Not  that,  any  guilt  was 
supposed  to  attach  to  my  character.  My  officious  country- 
man, to  do  him  justice,  had  been  candid  enough  to  explain 
my  perfect  innocence.  But,  somehow  or  other,  there  is  a 
want  of  strong  virtue  in  mankind.  We  have  plenty  of  the 
softer  instincts,  but  the  heroic  character  is  gone.  How  else 
can  I  account  for  it,  that  of  all  my  numerous  acquaintance, 
among  whom  I  had  the  honour  of  ranking  sundry  persons  of 
education,  talents,  and  worth,  scarcely  here  and  there  one  or 
two  could  be  found  who  had  the  courage  to  associate  with  a 
man  that  had  been  hanged. 

Those  few  who  did  not  desert  me  altogether  were  persons 
of  strong  but  coarse  minds  ;  and  from  the  absence  of  all  deli- 
cacy in  them  I  suffered  almost  as  much  as  from  the  super- 
abundance of  a  false  species  of  it  in  the  others.  Those  who 
stuck  by  me  were  the  jokers,  who  thought  themselves  entitled 
by  the  fidelity  which  they  had  shown  towards  me  to  use  me 
with  what  familiarity  they  pleased.  Many  and  unfeeling  are 
the  jests  that  I  have  suffered  from  these  rude  (because  faith- 
ful) Achateses.  As  they  passed  me  in  the  streets,  one  would 
nod  significantly  to  his  companion  and  say,  pointing  to  me, 
Smoke  his  cravat,  and  ask  me  if  I  had  got  a  wen,  that  1  was  so 
36* 


426  ON    THE    INCONVENIENCES 

solicitous  to  cover  my  neck.  Another  would  inquire  what 
news  from  *  *  *  Assizes,  (which  you  may  guess,  Mr.  Edi- 
tor, vvas  the  scene  of  my  shame,)  and  whether  the  sessions  was 
like  to  prove  a  maiden  one.  A  third  would  offer  to  ensure  me 
from  drowning.  A  fourth  would  tease  me  with  inquiries  how 
I  felt  when  I  was  swinging,  whether  I  had  not  something  like 
a  blue  flame  dancing  before  my  eyes.  A  fifth  took  a  fancy 
never  to  call  me  anything  but  Lazarus.  And  an  eminent 
bookseller  and  publisher — who,  in  his  zeal  to  present  the  pub- 
lic with  new  facts,  had  he  lived  in  those  days,  I  am  confident, 
would  not  have  scrupled  waiting  upon  the  person  himself  last 
mentioned,  at  the  most  critical  period  of  his  existence,  to  so- 
licit a  few  facts  relative  to  resuscitation — had  the  modesty  to  of- 
fer me guineas  per  sheet,  if  I  would  write,  in  his  maga- 
zine, a  physiological  account  of  my  feelings  upon  coming  to 
myself.  , 

But  these  were  evils  which  a  moderate  fortitude  might 
have  enabled  me  to  struggle  with.  Alas  !  Mr.  Editor,  the 
women,  whose  good  graces  I  had  always  most  assiduously 
cultivated,  from  whose  softer  minds  I  had  hoped  a  more  deli- 
cate and  generous  sympathy  than  I  found  in  the  men — the 
women  began  to  shun  me — this  was  the  unkindest  blow  of 
all. 

But  is  it  to  be  wondered  at?  How  couldst  thou  imagine, 
wretchedest  of  beings,  that  that  tender  creature  Seraphina 
would  fling  her  pretty  arms  about  that  neck  which  previous 
circumstances  had  rendered  infamous  ?  That  she  would  put  up 
with  the  refuse  of  the  rope,  the  leavings  of  the  cord  '{  Or  that 
any  analogy  could  subsist  between  the  knot  which  binds  true 
lovers,  and  the  knot  which  ties  malefactors  1 

I  can  forgive  that  pert  baggage  Flirtilla,  who,  when  I  com- 
plimented her  one  day  on  the  execution  which  her  eyes  had 
done,  replied,  that,  to  be  sure,  Mr.  *  *  was  a  judge  of  those 
things.  But  from  thy  more  exalted  mind,  Celestina,  I  expect- 
ed a  more  unprejudiced  decision. 

The  person  whose  true  name  I  conceal  under  this  appella- 
tion, of  all  the  women  that  I  was  ever  acquainted  with,  had 
the  most  manly  turn  of  mind,  which  she  had  improved  by 
reading  and  the  best  conversation.  Her  Understanding  was 
not  more  masculine  than  her  manners  and  whole  disposition 
were  delicately  and  truly  feminine.  She  was  the  daughter 
of  an  officer  who  had  fallen  in  the  service  of  his  country, 
leaving  his  widow  and  Celestina  an  only  child,  with  a  fortune 
sufficient  to  set  them  above  want,  but  not  to  enable  them  to 
live  in  splendour.     1  had  the  mother's  permission  to  pay  my 


RESULTING     FROM    DEIM;     HANGED.  427 

addresses  to  the  young  lady,  and  Celestina  seemed  to  approve 
of  my  suit. 

Often  and  often  have  I  poured  out  mv  overcharged  soul  in 
the  presence  of  Celestina,  complaining  of  the  hard  and  un- 
feeling prejudices  of  the  world,  and  the  sweet  maid  has  again 
and  again  declared,  that  no  irrational  prejudice  should  hinder 
her  from  esteeming  every  man  according  to  his  intrinsic  worth. 
Often  lias  she  repeated  the  consolatory  assurance,  that  she 
could  never  consider  as  essentially  ignominious  an  accident, 
which  was  indeed  to  be  deprecated,  hut  which  might  have 
happened  to  the  most  innocent  of  mankind.  Then  would  she 
set  forth  some  illustrious  example,  which  her  reading  easily 
furnished,  of  a  Phocion  or  a  Socrates  unjustly  condemned  ; 
of  a  Raleigh  or  a  Sir  Thomas  More,  to  whom  late  posterity 
jiad  done  justice  ;  and  by  soothing  my  fancy  with  some  such 
agreeable  parallel,  she  would  make  me  almost  to  triumph  in 
my  disgrace,  and  convert  my  shame  into  glory. 

In  such  entertaining  and  instructive  conversations  the  time 
passed  on,  till  I  importunately  urged  the  mistress  of  my  affec- 
tions to  name  a  day  for  our  union.  To  this  she  obligingly 
consented,  and  1  thought  myself  the  happiest  of  mankind. 
But  how  was  I  surprised  one  morning  on  the  receipt  of  the 
following  billet  from  my  charmer:  — 

Sir, 
You  must  not  impute  it  to  levity,  or  to  a  worse  failing,  in- 
gratitude, if,  with  anguish  of  heart,  I  feel  myself  compelled  by 
irresistible  arguments  to  recall  a  vow  which  I  fear  1  made  with 
too  little  consideration.  I  never  can  be  yours.  The  reasons 
of  my  decision,  which  is  final,  are  in  my  own  breast,  anc  you 
must  everlastingly  remain  a  stranger  to  them.  Assure  your- 
self that  I  can  never  cease  to  esteem  you  as  I  ought. 

Celestina. 

At  the  sight  of  this  paper,  I  ran  in  frantic  haste  to  Celes- 
tina's  lodgings,  where  I  learned,  to  my  infinite  mortification, 
that  the  mother  and  daughter  w-ere  set  oil"  on  a  journey  to 
a  distant  part  of  the  country,  to  visit  a  relation,  and  were  not 
expected  to  return  in  less  than  four  months. 

Stunned  by  this  blow,  which  left  me  without  the  courage 
to  solicit  an  explanation  by  letter,  even  if  I  had  known  where 
they  were,  (for  the  particular  address  was  industriously  con- 
cealed from  me,)  1  waited  with  impatience  the  termination  of 
the  period,  in  the  vain  hope  that  1  might  be  permitted  to  have 
a  chance  of  softening  the  harsh  decision  by  a  personal  inter- 
view with  Celestina  alter  her  return.     But  before  three  months 


428  ON    THE    INCONVENIENCES 

were  at  an  end,  I  learned  from  the  newspapers,  that  my  be- 
loved had — given  her  hand  to  another ! 

Heart-broken  as  I  was,  I  was  totally  at  a  loss  to  account 
for  the  strange  step  which  she  had  taken ;  and  it  was  not 
till  some  years  after  that  I  learned  the  true  reason  from 
a  female  relation  of  hers,  to  whom  it  seems  Celestina  had 
confessed  in  confidence,  that  it  was  no  demerit  of  mine 
that  had  caused  her  to  break  off*  the  match  so  abruptly,  nor 
any  preference  which  she  might  feel  for  any  other  person,  for 
she  preferred  me  (she  was  pleased  to  say)  to  all  mankind; 
but  when  she  came  to  lay  the  matter  closer  to  her  heart,  she 
found  that  she  never  should  be  able  to  bear  the  sight  (I  give 
you  her  very  words  as  they  were  detailed  to  me  by  her  rela- 
tion) the  sight  of  a  man  in  a  nightcap,  who  had  appeared  on  a 
public  platform,  it  would  lead  to  such  a  disagreeable  associa- 
tion of  ideas !     And  to  this  punctilio  I  was  sacrificed. 

To  pass  over  an  infinite  series  of  minor  mortifications,  to 
which  this  last  and  heaviest  might  well  render  me  callous, 
behold  me  here,  Mr.  Editor  !  in  the  thirty-seventh  year  of  my 
existence,  (the  twelfth,  reckoning  from  my  reanimation,)  cut 
off  from  all  respectable  connexions,  rejected  by  the  fairer 
half  of  the  community — who  in  my  case  alone  seem  to  have 
laid  aside  the  characteristic  pity  of  their  sex ;  punished  be 
cause  I  was  once  punished  unjustly ;  suffering  for  no  other 
reason  than  because  I  once  had  the  misfortune  to  suffer 
without  any  cause  at  all.  In  no  other  country,  I  think,  but 
ihis,  could  a  man  have  been  subject  to  such  a  life-long  perse 
cution,  when  once  his  innocence  had  been  clearly  established. 

Had  I  crawled  forth  a  rescued  victim  from  the  rack  in  the 
horrible  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition — had  I  heaved  myself  up 
from  a  half  bastinado  in  China,  or  been  torn  from  the  just 
entering,  ghastly  empaling-stake  in  Barbary — had  I  dropped 
alive  from  the  knout  in  Russia,  or  come  off  with  a  gashed 
neck  from  the  half-mortal,  scarce-in-time-retracted  cimeter  of 
an  executioneering  slave  in  Turkey — I  might  have  borne  about 
the  remnant  of  this  frame  (the  mangled  trophy  of  reprieved 
innocence)  with  credit  to  myself,  in  any  of  those  barbarous 
countries.  No  scorn,  at  least,  would  have  mingled  with  the 
pity  (small  as  it  might  be)  with  which  what  was  left  of  me 
would  have  been  surveyed. 

The  singularity  of  my  case  has  often  led  me  to  inquire  into 
the  reasons  of  the  general  levity  with  which  the  subject  of 
hanging  is  treated  as  a  topic  in  this  country.  I  say  as  a  topic  : 
for  let  the  very  persons  who  speak  so  lightly  of  the  tiling 
at  a  distance  be  brought  to  view  the;  real  scene — let  the  plat- 
form be  bona  fide  exhibited,  and  the  trembling  culprit  brought 


RESULTING    FROM    BEING    HANGED.  420 

forth — the  case  is  changed  ;  but  as  a  topic  of  conversation,  I 
appeal  to  the  vulgar  jukes  which  pass  current  in  every  street 
15 11 1  why  mention  them,  when  the  politest  authors  have  agreed 
in  making  use  of  this  subject  as  a  source  of  the  ridiculous  J 
Swift,  and  Pope,  and  Prior  are  fond  of  recurring  to  it.  Gay  lias 
built  an  entire  drama  upon  this  single  foundation.  The  whole 
interest  of  the  Beggars'  Opera  may  be  said  to  hang  upon  it. 
To  such  writers  as  Fielding  and  Smollett  it  is  a  perfect  bom 
louche.  Hear  the  facetious  'Pom  Brown,  in  his  Comical  I 
of  London  and  Westminster,  describe  the  Order  of  the  IS  how 
at  one  of  the  Tyburn  Executions  in  his  time  : — "  Mr.  Ordinary 
visits  his  melancholy  flock  in  Newgate  by  eight.  Doleful 
procession  up  Ilolboni-lnll  about  eleven.  Men  handsome  and 
proper  that  were  never  thought  so  before,  which  is  some  com- 
fort, however.  Arrive  at  the  fatal  place  by  twelve.  Burnt 
brandy,  women,  and  Sabbath-breaking  repented  of.  Some  few 
penitential  drops  fall  under  the  gallows.  Sheriffs'  men,  par- 
son, pickpockets,  criminals,  all  very  busy.  The  last  conclu- 
ding peremptory  psalm  struck  up.  Show  over  one  by  one." 
In  this  sportive  strain  does  this  misguided  wit  think  proper  to 
play  with  a  subject  so  serious,  which  yet  he  would  hardly 
have  done  if  he  had  not  known  that  there  existed  a  predispo- 
sition in  the  habits  of  his  unaccountable  countrymen  to  con- 
sider the  subject  as  a  jest. 

But  what  shall  we  say  to  Shakspeare,  who,  (not  to  mention 
the  solution  which  the  Gravedigger  in  Hamlet  gives  of  his 
fellow-workman's  problem,)  in  that  scene  in  Measure  for 
Measure,  where  the  clown  calls  upon  Master  Bumardine  to  get 
up  and  be  hanged,  which  he  declines  on  the  score  of  being 
sleepy,  has  actually  gone  out  of  his  way  to  gratify  this  amiable 
propensity  in  his  countrymen  ;  for  it  is  plain,  from  the  use 
that  was  to  be  made  of  his  head,  and  from  Auhorson's  asking, 
"  is  the  axe  upon  the  block,  sirrah?"  that  beheading,  and  not 
hanging,  was  the  punishment  to  which  Barnardine  was  des- 
tined. But  Shakspeare  knew  that  the  axe  and  block  were 
pregnant  with  no  ludicrous  images,  and  therefore  falsified  the 
historic  truth  of  his  own  drama  (if  I  may  so  speak)  rather 
than  he  would  leave  out  such  excellent  matter  for  a  jest  as  the 
suspending  of  a  fellow-creature  in  mid  air  has  been  ever 
esteemed  to  be  by  Englishmen. 

One  reason  why  the  ludicrous  never  fails  to  intrude  itself 
into  our  contemplations  upon  this  mode  of  death,  I  suppose  to 
Ik  ,  the  absurd  ppsture  into  which  :i  man  is  thrown  who  is 
condemned  to  dance,  as  the  vulgar  delight  to  express  it,  upon 
nothing.     To  see  him  whisking  and  wavering  in  the  air, 


430  ON    THE    INCONVENIENCES,    ETC. 

"  As  the  wind  you  know  will  wave  a  man  ;"* 

to  behold  the  vacant  carcass,  from  which  the  life  is  newly 
dislodged,  shifting  between  earth  and  heaven,  the  sport  of 
every  gust ;  like  a  weathercock,  serving  to  show  from  which 
point  the  wind  blows  ;  like  a  maukin,  fit  only  to  scare  away 
birds  ;  like  a  nest  left  to  swing  upon  a  bough  when  the  bird 
is  flown :  these  are  uses  to  which  we  cannot  without  a  mix- 
ture of  spleen  and  contempt  behold  the  human  carcass  reduced. 
VVe  string  up  dogs,  foxes,  bats,  moles,  weasels.  Man  surely 
deserves  a  steadier  death. 

Another  reason  why  the  ludicrous  associates  more  forcibly 
with  this  than  with  any  other  mode  of  punishment,  I  cannot  help 
thinking  to  be,  the  senseless  costume  with  which  old  pre- 
scription has  thought  fit  to  clothe  the  exit  of  malefactors  in 
this  country.  Let  a  man  do  what  he  will  to  abstract  from  his 
imagination  all  idea  of  the  whimsical,  something  of  it  will 
come  across  him  when  he  contemplates  the  figure  of  a  fellow- 
creature  in  the  daytime  (in  however  distressing  a  situation)  in 
a  nightcap.  Whether  it  be  that  this  nocturnal  addition  has 
something  discordant  with  daylight,  or  that  it  is  the  dress 
which  we  are  seen  in  at  those  times  when  we  are  "  seen,"  as 
the  angel  in  Milton  expresses  it,  "  least  wise  ;"  this  I  am 
afraid  will  always  be  the  case  ;  unless,  indeed,  as  in  my  in- 
stance, some  strong  personal  feeling  overpower  the  ludicrous 
altogether.  To  me,  when  I  reflect  upon  the  train  of  misfor- 
tunes which  have  pursued  men  through  life,  owing  to  that  ac- 
cursed drapery,  the  cap  presents  as  purely  frightful  an  object 
as  the  sleeveless  yellow  coat  and  devil-painted  mitre  of  the 
San  Benitos.  An  ancestor  of  mine,  who  suffered  for  his  loy- 
alty in  the  time  of  the  civil  wars,  was  so  sensible  of  the  truth 
of  what  I  am  here  advancing,  that  on  the  morning  of  execution, 
no  entreaties  could  prevail  upon  him  to  submit  to  the  odious 
dishabille,  as  he  called  it,  but  he  insisted  upon  wearing,  and 
actually  suffered  in,  the  identical  flowing  periwig  which  he 
is  painted  in,  in  the  gallery  belonging  to  my  uncle's  seat  in 
shire. 

Suffer  me,  Mr.  Editor,  before  I  quit  the  subject,  to  say  a 
word  or  two  respecting  the  minister  of  justice  in  this  country  ; 
in  plain  words,  1  mean  the  hangman.  It  has  always  appeared 
to  me  that,  in  the  mode  of  inflicting  capital  punishments  with 
us,  there  is  too  much  of  the  ministry  of  the  human  hand. 
The  guillotine,  as  performing  its  functions  more  of  itself  and 
sparing  human  agency,  though  a  cruel  and  disgusting  exhibi- 
tion, in  my  mind,  has  many  ways  the  advantage  over  our  way. 

*  Hieronimo  in  the  Spanish  tragedy. 


ON    THE    MELANCHOLY    OF   TAILORS.  431 

In  beheading,  indeed,  as  it  was  formerly  practised  in  England, 
and  in  whipping  to  death,  as  is  sometimes  practised  now,  the 
hand  of  man  is  no  doubt  sufficiently  busy  ;  but  there  is  some- 
thing less  repugnant  in  these  downright  blows  than  in  the  offi- 
cious barber-like  ministerings  of  the  other.  To  have  a  fellow 
with  his  hangman's  hands  fumbling  about  your  collar,  adjusting 
the  thing  as  your  valet  would  regulate  your  cravat,  valuing 
himself  on  his  menial  dexterity — 

I  never  shall  forget  meeting  my  rascal — I  mean  the  fellow 
who  officiated  for  me — in  London  last  winter.  I  think  I  see 
him  now — in  a  waistcoat  that  had  been  mine — smirking  along 
as  if  he  knew  me — 

In  some  parts  of  Germany,  that  fellow's  office  is  by  law  de- 
clared infamous,  and  his  posterity  incapable  of  being  ennobled. 
They  have  hereditary  hangmen,  or  had,  at  least,  in  the  same 
manner  as  they  had  hereditary  other  great  officers  of  state  : 
and  the  hangmen's  families  of  two  adjoining  parishes  inter- 
married with  each  other,  to  keep  the  breed  entire.  I  wish 
something  of  the  same  kind  were  established  in  England. 

But  it  is  time  to  quit  a  subject  which  teems  with  disagree- 
able images. 

Permit  me  to  subscribe  myself,  Mr.  Editor, 

Your  unfortunate  friend, 

Pensilis. 


ON  THE  MELANCHOLY  OF  TAILORS. 

"  Sedet,  aeternumque  sedebit, 
Infelix  Theseus." — Virgil. 

That  there  is  a  professional  melancholy,  if  I  may  so  ex- 
press  myself,  incident  to  the  occupation  of  a  tailor,  is  a  fact 
which  I  think  very  few  will  venture  to  dispute.  I  may  safely 
appeal  to  my  readers,  whether  they  ever  knew  one  of  that 
faculty  that  was  not  of  a  temperament,  to  say  the  least,  far  re- 
moved from  mercurial  or  jovial. 

Observe  the  suspicious  gravity  of  their  gait.  The  peacock 
is  not  more  tender,  from  a  consciousness  of  his  peculiar  in- 
firmity, than  a  gentleman  of  this  profession  is  of  being  known 
by  the  same  infallible  testimonies  of  his  occupation.  "  Walk, 
that  I  may  know  thee." 

Do  you  ever  see  him  go  whistling  along  the  foot-path  like 


432  ON    THE    MELANCHOLY    OF    TAILORS. 

a  carman,  or  brush  through  a  crowd  like  a  baker,  or  go  smi- 
ling to  himself  like  a  lover  ?  Is  he  forward  to  thrust  into 
mobs,  or  to  make  one  at  the  ballad-singer's  audience  ?  Does 
he  not  rather  slink  by  assemblies  and  meetings  of  the  people, 
as  one  who  wisely  declines  popular  observation  1 

How  extremely  rare  is  a  noisy  tailor !  a  mirthful  and  ob- 
streperous tailor ! 

"At  my  nativity,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "my  ascen- 
dant was  the  earthly  sign  of  Scorpius  ;  I  was  born  in  the 
planetary  hour  of  Saturn,  and  I  think  I  have  a  piece  of  that 
leaden  planet  in  me."  One  would  think  that  he  were  anato- 
mizing a  tailor  !  save  that  to  the  latter's  occupation,  methinks, 
a  woollen  planet  would  seem  more  consonant,  and  that  he 
should  be  born  when  the  sun  was  in  Aries.  He  goes  on. 
"  I  am  no  way  facetious,  nor  disposed  for  the  mirth  and  gal- 
liardise  of  company."  How  true  a  type  of  the  whole  trade ! 
Eminently  economical  of  his  words,  you  shall  seldom  hear  a 
jest  come  from  one  of  them.  He  sometimes  furnishes  sub- 
ject for  a  repartee,  but  rarely  (I  think)  contributes  one  ore 
proprio. 

Drink  itself  does  not  seem  to  elevate  him,  or  at  least  to 
call  out  of  him  any  of  the  external  indications  of  vanity.  I 
cannot  say  that  it  never  causes  his  pride  to  swell,  but  it  never 
breaks  out.  I  am  even  fearful  that  it  may  swell  and  rankle 
to  an  alarming  degree  inwardly.  For  pride  is  near  of  kin  to 
melancholy  ;  a  hurtful  obstruction  from  the  ordinary  outlets 
of  vanity  being  shut.  It  is  this  stoppage  which  engenders  proud 
humours.  Therefore  a  tailor  may  be  proud.  I  think  he  is 
never  vain.  The  display  of  his  gaudy  patterns  in  that  book 
of  his  which  emulates  the  rainbow,  never  raises  any  inflations 
of  that  emotion  in  him,  corresponding  to  what  the  wigmaker 
(for  instance)  evinces  when  he  expatiates  on  a  curl  or  a  bit  of 
hair.  He  spreads  them  forth  with  a  sullen  incapacity  for 
pleasure,  a  real  or  affected  indifference  to  grandeur.  Cloth 
of  gold  neither  seems  to  elate,  nor  cloth  of  frieze  to  depress 
him — according  to  the  beautiful  motto  which  formed  the  mod- 
est imprese  of  the  shield  worn  by  Charles  Brandon  at  his 
marriage  with  the  king's  sister.  Nay,  I  doubt  whether  he 
Mould  discover  any  vainglorious  complacence  in  his  colours, 
though  "  Iris"  herself  "  dipped  the  woof." 

In  further  corroboration  of  this  argument — who  ever  saw 
tho  wedding  of  a  tailor  announced  in  the  newspapers,  or  the 
birth  of  his  eldest  son  ? 

When  was  a  tailor  known  to  give  a  dance,  or  to  be  himself 
a,  good  dancer,  or  to  perform  exquisitely  on  the  tight  rope,  or 


ON    THE    MELANCHOLY    OF    TAILORS.  433 

to  shine  in  any  such  light  and  airy  pastimes  ?  to  sing,  or  play 
on  the  violin  ? 

Do  they  much  care  for  public  rejoicings,  lightings  up,  ring- 
ing of  bells,  firing  of  cannons,  &c? 

Valiant  I  know  they  can  be ;  but  I  appeal  to  those  who 
were  witnesses  to  the  exploits  of  Eliot's  famous  troop, 
whether  in  their  fiercest  charges  they  betrayed  anything  of 
that  thoughtless  oblivion  of  death  with  which  a  Frenchman 
jigs  into  battle,  or  whether  they  did  not  show  more  of  tho 
melancholy  valour  of  the  Spaniard  upon  whom  they  charged  ; 
that  deliberate  courage  which  contemplation  and  sedentary 
habits  breathe  ? 

Are  they  often  great  newsmongers  ?  I  have  known  some 
few  among  them  arrive  at  the  dignity  of  speculative  politi- 
cians ;  but  that  light  and  cheerful  every-day  interest  in  the 
affairs  and  goings-on  of  the  world,  which  makes  the  barber* 
such  delightful  company,  I  think  is  rarely  observable  in  them. 

This  characteristic  pensiveness  in  them  being  so  notorious, 
I  wonder  none  of  those  writers  who  have  expressly  treated 
of  melancholy  should  have  mentioned  it.  Burton,  whose 
book  is  an  excellent  abstract  of  all  the  authors  in  that  kind 
who  preceded  him,  and  who  treats  of  every  species  of  this 
malady,  from  the  hypochondriacal  or  windy  to  the  heroical  or 
love  melancholy,  has  strangely  omitted  it.  Shakspeare  him- 
self has  overlooked  it.  "  I  have  neither  the  scholar's  melan- 
choly, (saith  Jaques,)  which  is  emulation  ;  nor  the  courtier's, 
which  is  proud  ;  nor  the  soldier's,  which  is  politic  ;  nor  the 
lover's,  which  is  all  these  :"  and  then,  when  you  might  ex- 
pect him  to  have  brought  in,  "  nor  the  tailor's,  which  is  so 
and  so" — he  comes  to  an  end  of  his  enumeration,  and  falls  to 
a  defining  of  his  own  melancholy. 

Milton  likewise  has  omitted  it,  where  he  had  so  fair  an  op- 
portunity of  bringing  it  in,  in  his  Penseroso. 

But  the  partial  omissions  of  historians  proving  nothing 
against  the  existence  of  any  well-attested  fact,  I  shall  pro- 
ceed and  endeavour  to  ascertain  the  causes  why  this  pensive 

*  Having  incidently  mentioned  the  barber,  in  a  comparison  of  professional 
temperaments,  I  hope  no  other  trade  will  take  offence,  or  look  upon  it  as  an 
incivility  done  to  them,  if  I  say,  that  in  courtesy,  humanity,  and  all  the  con- 
versational and  social  graces  which  "  gladden  life,"  I  esteem  no  profession 
comparable  to  his.  Indeed,  so  great  is  the  good-will  which  I  bear  to  this  use- 
ful and  agreeable  body  of  men,  that,  residing  in  one  of  the  Inns  of  Court, 
(where  the  best  specimens  of  them  are  to  be  found,  except,  perhaps,  at  the 
universities,)  there  are  seven  of  them  to  whom  I  am  personally  known,  and 
who  never  pass  me  without  the  compliment  of  the  hat  on  either  side.  My 
truly  polite  and  urbane  friend,  Mr.-A m,  of  Flower-de-luce-court,  in  Fleet- 
street,  will  forgive  my  mention  of  him  in  particular.  I  can  truly  say,  that  I 
never  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour  under  his  hands  without  deriving  some  profit 
from  the  agreeable  discussions  which  are  always  going  on  there. 
37                                         T 


434  ON    THE    MELANCHOLY    OF    TAILORS. 

turn  should  be  so  predominant  in  people  of  this  profession 
above  all  others. 

And  first,  may  it  not  be,  that  the  custom  of  wearing  ap- 
parel being  derived  to  us  from  the  fall,  and  one  of  the  most 
mortifying  products  of  that  unhappy  event,  a  certain  serious- 
ness (to  say  no  more  of  it)  may  in  the  order  of  things  have 
been  intended  to  be  impressed  upon  the  minds  of  that  race  ol 
men  to  whom  in  all  ages  the  care  of  contriving  the  human 
apparel  has  been  intrusted — to  keep  up  the  memory  of  the 
first  institution  of  clothes,  and  serve  as  a  standing  remon- 
strance against  those  vanities  which  the  absurd  conversion 
of  a  memorial  of  our  shame  into  an  ornament  of  our  persons 
was  destined  to  produce  1  Correspondent  in  some  sort  to 
this,  it  may  be  remarked,  that  the  tailor  sitting  over  a  cave 
or  hollow  place,  in  the  cabalistic  language  of  his  order,  is 
said  to  have  certain  melancholy  regions  always  open  under  his 
feet.  But  waving  further  inquiry  into  final  causes,  whe  • 
the  best  of  us  can  only  wander  in  the  dark,  let  us  try  to  dis- 
cover the  efficient  causes  of  this  melancholy. 

I  think,  then,  that  they  may  be  reduced  to  two,  omitting 
some  subordinate  ones,  viz. — 

The  sedentary  habits  of  the  tailor. 
Something  peculiar  in  his  diet. 

First,  his  sedentary  habits. — In  Doctor  Norris's  famous 
narrative  of  the  phrensy  of  Mr.  John  Dennis,  the  patient, 
being  questioned  as  to  the  occasion  of  the  swelling  in  his 
legs,  replies  that  it  came  "  by  criticism  ;"  to  which  the  learned 
doctor  seeming  to  demur,  as  to  a  distemper  which  he  had 
never  read  of,  Dennis  (who  appears  not  to  have  been  mad 
upon  all  subjects)  rejoins,  with  some  warmth,  that  it  was  no 
distemper,  but  a  noble  art !  that  he  had  sat  fourteen  hours  a 
day  at  it :  and  that  the  other  was  a  pretty  doctor  not  to  know 
that  there  was  a  cummunication  between  the  brain  and  the 

When  we  consider  that  this  sitting  for  fourteen  hours  con- 
tinuously, which  the  critic  probably  practised  only  while  he 
was  writing  his  "  remarks,"  is  no  more  than  what  the  tailor, 
in  the  ordinary  pursuance  of  his  art,  submits  to  daily  (Sun 
days  excepted)  throughout  the  year,  shall  we  wonder  to  find 
the  brain  affected,  and  in  a  manner  overclouded,  from  that 
indissoluble  sympathy  between  the  noble  and  less  noble  parts 
of  the  body,  which  Dennis  hints  at  ?  The  unnatural  and  pain- 
ful manner  of  his  sitting  must  also  greatly  aggravate  the  evil, 
insomuch  that  I  have  sometimes  ventured  to  liken  tailors  at 
their  boards  to  so  many  envious  Junos,  sitting  cross-legged  to 
hinder  the  birth  of  their  own  felicity.     The  legs  transversed 


INDULGENCE  OF  THE  PALATE.  435 

thus  X!  crosswise,  or  decussated,  was  among  the  ancients 
the  posture  of  malediction.  The  Turks,  who  practise  it  at 
this  day,  are  noted  to  be  a  melancholy  people. 

Secondly,  his  diet. — To  which  purpose  I  find  a  most  re- 
markable passage  in  Burton,  in  his  chapter  entitled  "  Bad  diet- 
a  cause  of  melancholy."  "  Among  herbs  to  be  eaten  (he  says) 
I  find  gourds,  cucumbers,  melons,  disallowed ;  but  especially 
cabbage.  It  causeth  troublesome  dreams,  and  sends  up  black 
vapours  to  the  brain.  Galen,  loc.  affect.,  lib.  3,  cap.  6,  of  all 
herbs  condemns  cabbage.  And  Isaack,  lib.  2,  cap.  1,  animes 
gravitatcm  facit,  it  brings  heaviness  to  the  soul."  I  could  not 
omit  so  flattering  a  testimony  from  an  author  who,  having  no 
theory  of  his  own  to  serve,  has  so  unconsciously  contributed  to 
the  confirmation  of  mine.  It  is  well  known  that  this  last- 
named  vegetable  has,  from  the  earliest  periods  which  we  can 
discover,  constituted  almost  the  sole  food  of  this  extraordinary 
race  of  people. 

Burton,  Junior. 


HOSPITA  ON  THE  IMMODERATE  INDULGENCE 
OF  THE  PLEASURES  OF  THE  PALATE 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector. 

Mr.  Reflector — My  husband  and  I  are  fond  of  company, 
and,  being  in  easy  circumstances,  we  are  seldom  without  a 
party  to  dinner  two  or  three  days  in  a  week.  The  utmost 
cordiality  has  hitherto  prevailed  at  our  meetings  ;  but  there  is 
a  young  gentleman,  a  near  relation  of  my  husband,  that  has  lately 
come  among  us,  whose  preposterous*  behaviour  bids  fair,  un- 
less timely  checked,  to  disturb  our  tranquillity.  He  is  too 
great  a  favourite  with  my  husband  in  other  respects  for  me  to 
remonstrate  with  him  in  any  other  than  this  distant  way.  A  let- 
ter printed  in  your  publication  ma}'  catch  his  eye  ;  for  he  is  a 
great  reader,  and  makes  a  point  of  seeing  all  the  new  things 
that  come  out.  Indeed,  he  is  by  no  means  deficient  in  under- 
standing. My  husband  says  that  he  has  a  good  deal  of  wit ;  but, 
for  my  part,  I  cannot  say  I  am  any  judge  of  that,  having  seldom 
observed  him  open  his  mouth  except  for  purposes  very  foreign 
to  conversation.  In-  short,  sir,  this  young  gentleman's  failing 
is  an  immoderate  indulgence  of  his  palate.  The  first  time  he 
dined  with  us  he  thought  it  necessary  to  extenuate  the  length 

T  2 


436  INDULGENCE    OF    THE    PALATE. 

of  time  he  kept  the  dinner  on  the  table,  by  declaring  that  he 
had  taken  a  very  long  walk  in  the  morning,  and  came  in  fast- 
ing ;  but  as  that  excuse  could  not  serve  above  once  or  twice 
at  most,  he  has  latterly  dropped  the  mask  altogether,  and 
chosen  to  appear  in  his  own  proper  colours  without  reserve  or 
apology. 

You  cannot  imagine  how  unpleasant  his  conduct  has  be- 
come. His  way  of  staring  at  the  dishes  as  they  are  brought 
in  has  absolutely  something  immodest  in  it :  it  is  like  the 
stare  of  an  impudent  man  of  fashion  at  a  fine  woman,  when  she 
first  comes  into  the  room.  I  am  positively  in  pain  for  the 
dishes,  and  cannot  help  thinking  they  have  consciousness,  and 
will  be  put  out  of  countenance,  he  treats  them  so  like  what  they 
are  not. 

Then,  again,  he  makes  no  scruple  of  keeping  a  joint  of  meat 
on  the  table,  after  'the  cheese  and  fruit  are  brought  in,  till  he 
has  what  he  calls  done  with  it.  Now  how  awkward  this  looks 
where  there  are  ladies,  you  may  judge,  Mr.  Reflector — how  it 
disturbs  the  order  and  comfort  of  a  meal.  And  yet  I  always 
make  a  point  of  helping  him  first,  contrary  to  all  good  man- 
ners— before  any  of  my  female  friends  are  helped — that  he 
may  avoid  this  very  error.  I  wish  he  would  eat  before  he 
comes  out. 

What  makes  his  proceedings  more  particularly  offensive  at 
our  house  is,  that  my  husband,  though  out  of  common  polite- 
ness he  is  obliged  to  set  dishes  of  animal  food  before  his 
visiters,  yet  himself  and  his  whole  family  (myself  included) 
feed  entirely  on  vegetables.  We  have  a  theory,  that  animal 
food  is  neither  wholesome  nor  natural  to  man  ;  and  even  veg- 
etables we  refuse  to  eat  until  they  have  undergone  the  opera- 
tion of  fire,  in  consideration  of  those  numberless  little  living 
creatures  which  the  glass  helps  us  to  detect  in  every  fibre  of 
the  plant  or  root  before  it  be  dressed.  On  the  same  theory  we 
boil  our  water,  which  is  our  only  drink,  before  we  suffer  it  to 
come  to  table.  Our  children  are  perfect  little  Pythagoreans  : 
it  would  do  you  good  to  see  them  in  their  nursery,  stuffing 
their  dried  fruits,  figs,  raisins,  and  milk,  which  is  the  only  ap- 
proach to  animal  food  which  is  allowed.  They  have  no  notion 
how  the  substance  of  a  creature  that  ever  had  life  can  become 
food  for  another  creature.  A  beef-steak  is  an  absurdity  to 
them ;  a  mutton-chop,  a  solecism  in  terms  ;  a  cutlet,  a  word 
absolutely  without  any  meaning  ;  a  butcher  is  nonsense,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  it  is  taken  for  a  man  who  delights  in  blood,  or  a 
hero.  In  this  happy  state  of  innocence  we  have  kept  their 
minds,  not  allowing  them  to  go  into  the  kitchen,  or  to  hear  of 
any  preparations  for  the  dressing  of  animal  food,  or  even  to 


INDULGENCE    OF    THE    PALaTC.  433 

know  that  such  things  are  practised.  But  as  a  state  of  igno- 
rance is  incompatible  with  a  certain  age,  and  as  my  eldest 
girl,  who  is  ten  years  old  next  midsummer,  must  shortly  be 
introduced  into  the  world  and  sit  at  table  with  us,  where  she 
will  see  some  things  which  will  shock  all  her  received  notions, 
I  have  been  endeavouring,  by  little  and  little,  to  break  her  mind 
and  prepare  it  for  the  disagreeable  impressions  which  must  be 
forced  upon  it.  The  first  hint  I  gave  her  upon  the  subject, 
I  could  see  her  recoil  from  it  with  the  same  horror  with  which 
we  listen  to  a  tale  of  Anthropophagism  ;  but  she  has  gradually 
grown  more  reconciled  to  it,  in  some  measure  from  my  telling 
her  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  world — to  which,  however 
senseless,  we  must  submit  so  far  as  we  could  do  it  with  inno- 
cence, not  to  give  offence  ;  and  she  has  shown  so  much 
strength  of  mind  on  other  occasions,  which  I  have  no  doubt  is 
owing  to  the  calmness  and  serenity  superinduced  by  her  diet, 
that  I  am  in  good  hopes,  when  the  proper  season  for  her  debut 
arrives,  she  may  be  brought  to  endure  the  sight  of  a  roasted 
chicken  or  a  dish  of  sweetbreads  for  the  first  time  without 
fainting.  Such  being  the  nature  of  our  little  household,  you 
may  guess  what  inroads  into  the  economy  of  it — what  revolu- 
tions and  turnings  of  things  upside  down,  the  example  of  such 
a  feeder  as  Mr. is  calculated  to  produce. 

I  wonder  at  a  time  like  the  present,  when  the  scarcity  of 
every  kind  of  food  is  so  painfully  acknowledged,  that  shame 
has  no  effect  upon  him.  Can  he  have  read  Mr.  Malthus's 
Thoughts  on  the  Ratio  of  Food  to  Population  ?  Can  he 
think  it  reasonable  that  one  man  should  consume  the  suste- 
nance of  many. 

The  young  gentleman  has  an  agreeable  air  and  person, 
such  as  are  not  unlikely  to  recommend  him  on  the  score  of 
matrimony.  But  his  fortune  is  not  over  large  ;  and  what  pru- 
dent young  woman  would  think  of  embarking  hers  with  a 
man  who  would  bring  three  or  four  mouths  (or  what  is  equiv- 
alent to  them)  into  a  family?  She  might  as  reasonably 
choose  a  widower  in  the  same  circumstances  with  three  or 
four  children. 

I  cannot  think  who  he  takes  after.  His  father  and  mother 
by  all  accounts  were  very  moderate  eaters  ;  only  I  have  heard 
that  the  latter  swallowed  her  victuals  very  fast,  and  the  form- 
er had  a  tedious  custom  of  sitting  long  at  his  meals.  Per- 
haps he  takes  after  both. 

I  wish  you  would  turn  this  in  your  thoughts,  Mr.  Reflector, 
and  give  us  your  ideas  on  the  subject  of  excessive  eating ; 
and  particularly  of  animal  food. 

Hospita. 
37* 


438  ON    APPETITE. 


EDAX  ON  APPETITE. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Reflector. 

Mr.  Reflector — I  am  going  to  lay  before  you  a  case 
of  the  most  iniquitous  persecution  that  ever  poor  devil  suf- 
fered. 

You  must  know,  then,  that  I  have  been  visited  with  a  ca- 
lamity ever  since  my  birth.  How  shall  I  mention  it  without 
offending  delicacy  ?  Yet  out  it  must.  My  sufferings,  then, 
have  all  arisen  from  a  most  inordinate  appetite — 

Not  for  wealth,  not  for  vast  possessions — then  might  I  have 
hoped  to  find  a  cure  in  some  of  those  precepts  of  philoso- 
phers or  poets,  those  verba  et  voces  which  Horace  speaks 
of, 

"  Quibus  hunc  lenire  dolorem 
Possis,  et  magnam  morbi  deponere  partem ;" 

not  for  glory,  not  for  fame,  not  for  applause — for  against  this 
disease,  too,  he  tells  us  there  are  certain  piacula,  or,  as  Pope 
has  chosen  to  render  it, 

"Rhymes,  which  fresh  and  fresh  applied, 
Will  cure  the  arrant'st  puppy  of  his  pride  ;" 

nor  yet  for  pleasure,  properly  so  called  ;  the  strict  and  virtu- 
ous lessons  which  I  received  in  early  life  from  the  best  of  pa- 
rents, a  pious  clergyman  of  the  church  of  England,  now  no 
more,  I  trust  have  rendered  me  sufficiently  secure  on  that 
side. 

No,  sir,  for  none  of  these  things ;  but  an  appetite,  in 
its  coarsest  and  least  metaphorical  sense — an  appetite  for 
food. 

The  exorbitances  of  my  arrow-root  and  pappish  days  I  can- 
not go  back  far  enough  to  remember,  only  I  have  been  told, 
that  my  mother's  constitution  not  admitting  of  my  being  nursed 
at  home,  the  woman  who  had  the  care  of  me  for  that  purpose 
used  to  make  most  extravagant  demands  for  my  pretended  ex- 
cesses in  that  kind ;  which  my  parents,  rather  than  believe 
anything  unpleasant  of  me,  chose  to  impute  to  the  known 
covetousness  and  mercenary  disposition  of  that  sort  of  people. 
This  blindness  continued  on  their  part  after  I  was  sent  for 
home,  up  to  the   period  when   it  was  thought  proper,  on  ac- 


ON    APPETITE.  439 

count  of  my  advanced  age,  that  I  should  mix  with  other  boys 
more  unreservedly  than  I  had  hitherto  done.  I  was  accord- 
ingly sent  to  boarding-school. 

Here  the  melancholy  truth  became  too  apparent  to  be  dis- 
guised. The  prying  republic  of  which  a  great  school  con- 
sists soon  found  me  out:  there  was  no  shifting  the  blame  any 
longer  upon  other  people's  shoulders  ;  no  good-natured  maid  to 
take  upon  herself  the  enormities  of  which  1  stood  accused  in 
the  article  of  bread  and  butter,  besides  the  crying  sin  of  stolen 
ends  of  puddings,  and  cold  pies  strangely  missing.  The  truth 
■was  but  too  manifest  in  my  looks — in  the  evident  signs  of  inan- 
ition which  1  exhibited  after  the  fullest  meals,  in  spite  of  the 
double  allowance  which  my  master  was  privately  instructed 
by  my  kind  parents  to  give  me.  The  sense  of  the  ridiculous, 
which  is  but  too  much  alive  in  grown  persons,  is  tenfold  more 
active  and  alert  in  hoys.  Once  detected,  I  was  the  constant 
butt  of  their  arrows,  the  mark  against  which  every  puny  lev- 
eller directed  his  little  shaft  of  scorn.  The  very  Graduses 
and  Thesauruses  were  raked  for  phrases  to  pelt  me  with  by 
the  tiny  pedants.  Ventri  natus — Ventri  deditus — Vesana  gu- 
la — Escarum  gurges — Dapibus  indulgens — Non  dans  frcena 
gulee — Sectans  lautae  fercula  mensze,  resounded  wheresoever  I 
passed.  I  led  a  weary  life,  suffering  the  penalties  of  guilt  for 
that  which  was  no  crime,  but  only  following  the  blameless 
dictates  of  nature.  The  remembrance  of  those  childish  re- 
proaches haunts  me  yet  oftentimes  in  my  dreams.  My  school- 
days come  again,  and  the  horror  I  used  to  feel,  when  in  some 
silent  corner  retired  from  the  notice  of  my  unfeeling  playfel- 
lows, I  have  sat  to  mumble  the  solitary  slice  of  gingerbread 
allotted  me  by  the  bounty  of  considerate  friends,  and  have 
ached  at  heart  because  I  could  not  spare  a  portion  of  it,  as  I 
saw  other  boys  do,  to  some  favourite  boy  ;  for,  if  I  know  my 
own  heart,  I  was  never  selfish — never  possessed  a  luxury  which 
I  did  not  hasten  to  communicate  to  others  ;  but  my  food,  alas! 
was  none ;  it  was  an  indispensable  necessary ;  I  could  as 
soon  have  spared  the  blood  in  my  veins,  as  have  parted  that 
with  my  companions. 

Well,  no  one  stage  of  suffering  lasts  for  ever:  we  should 
grow  reconciled  to  it  at  length,  I  suppose,  if  it  did.  The 
miseries  of  my  school-days  had  their  end  ;  I  was  once  more 
restored  to  the  paternal  dwelling.  The  affectionate  solicitude 
of  my  parents  was  directed  to  the  good-natured  purpose  of 
concealing  even  from  myself  the  infirmity  which  haunted  me. 
1  was  continually  told  that  I  was  growing,  and  the  appetite  I 
displayed  was  humanely  represented  as  being  nothing  more 
than  a  symptom  and  an  effect  of  that.     I  used  even   to   be 


440  ON    APPETITE. 

complimented  upon  it.  But  this  temporary  fiction  could  not 
endure  above  a  year  or  two.  I  ceased  to  grow,  but  alas  !  I 
did  not  cease,  my  demands  for  alimentary  sustenance. 

Those  times  are  long  since  past,  and  with  them  have  ceased 
to  exist  the  fond  concealment — the  indulgent  blindness — the 
delicate  overlooking — the  compassionate  fiction.  I  and  my 
infirmity  are  left  exposed  and  bare  to  the  broad,  unwinking 
eye  of  the  world,  which  nothing  can  elude.  My  meals  are 
scanned,  my  mouthfuls  weighed  in  a  balance  :  that  which  ap- 
petite demands  is  set  down  to  the  account  of  gluttony — a  sin 
which  my  whole  soul  abhors,  nay,  which  Nature  herself  has 
put  it  out  of  my  power  to  commit.  I  am  constitutionally  dis- 
enabled from  that  vice ;  for  how  can  he  be  guilty  of  excess 
who  never  can  get  enough  1  Let  them  cease,  then,  to  watch 
my  plate  ;  and  leave  off  their  ungracious  comparisons  of  it  to 
the  seven  baskets  of  fragments,  and  the  supernaturally-replen- 
ished  cup  of  old  Baucis ;  and  be  thankful  that  their  more 
phlegmatic  stomachs,  not  their  virtue,  has  saved  them  from  the 
like  reproaches.  I  do  not  see  that  any  of  them  desist  from 
eating  till  the  holy  rage  of  hunger,  as  some  one  calls  it,  is 
supplied.     Alas  !  I  am  doomed  to  stop  short  of  that  continence. 

What  am  I  to  do  1  I  am  by  disposition  inclined  to  convi- 
viality, and  the  social  meal.  I  am  no  gourmand  :  I  require  no 
dainties  :  I  should  despise  the  board  of  Heliogabalus,  except 
for  its  long  sitting.  Those  vivacious,  long-continued  meals  of 
the  latter  Romans,  indeed  I  justly  envy ;  but  the  kind  of  fare 
which  the  Curii  and  Dentati  put  up  with  I  could  be  content 
with.  Dentatus  I  have  been  called,  among  other  unsavory 
jests.  Double-meal  is  another  name  which  my  acquaintance 
have  palmed  upon  me,  for  an  innocent  piece  of  policy  which 
I  put  in  practice  for  some  time  without  being  found  out ;  which 
was — going  the  round  of  my  friends,  beginning  with  the  most 
primitive  feeders  among  them,  who  take  their  dinner  about 
one  o'clock,  and  so  successively  dropping  in  upon  the  next 
and  the  next,  till,  by  the  time  I  got  among  my  more  fashionable 
intimates,  whose  hour  was  six  or  seven,  I  had  nearly  made  up 
the  body  of  a  just  and  complete  meal,  (as  I  reckon  it,)  without 
taking  more  than  one  dinner  (as  they  account  of  dinners)  at 
one  person's  house.  Since  I  have  been  found  out,  I  endeavour 
to  make  up  by  a  damper,  as  I  call  it,  at  home,  before  I  go  out. 
But  alas  !  with  me,  increase  of  appetite  truly  grows  by  what 
it  feeds  on.  What  is  peculiarly  offensive  to  me  at  those  din- 
ner parties,  is  the  senseless  custom  of  cheese,  and  the  dessert 
afterward.  I  have  a  rational  antipathy  to  the  former ;  and 
for  fruit,  and  those  other  vain  vegetable  substitutes  for  meat, 
(meat,  the  only  legitimate  aliment  for  human  creatures  since 


ON    APPETITE.  411 

the  flood,  as  I  take  it  to  be  deduced  from  that  permission,  or 
ordinance  rather,  given  to  Noah  and  his  descendants,)  1  hold 
them  in  perfect  contempt.  Hay  for  horses.  I  remember  a 
pretty  apologue,  which  Mandevillc  t<  lhs  very  much  to  this 
purpose  in  his  Fable  of  the  Bees : — He  brings  in  a  lion  argu- 
ing with  a  merchant,  who  had  ventured  to  expostulate  with 
this  king  of  beasts  upon  his  violent  methods  of  feeding.  The 
lion  thus  retorts : — "  Savage  I  am ;  but  no  creature  can  be 
called  cruel  but  what  cither  by  malice  or  insensibility  extin 
guishes  his  natural  pity.  The  lion  was  born  without  com- 
passion ;  we  follow  the  instinct  of  our  nature  ;  the  gods  have 
appointed  us  to  live  upon  the  waste  and  spoil  of  other  animals, 
and  as  long  as  we  can  meet  with  dead  ones,  we  never  hunt 
after  the  living  ;  'tis  only  man,  mischievous  man,  that  can 
make  death  a  sport.  Nature  taught  your  stomach  to  crave 
nothing  but  vegetables.  (Under  favour  of  the  lion,  if  he 
meant  to  assert  this  universally  of  mankind,  it  is  not  true. 
However,  what  he  says  presently  is  very  sensible.)  Your 
violent  fondness  to  change,  and  greater  eagerness  after  novel- 
ties, have  prompted  you  to  the  destruction  of  animals  without 
justice  or  necessity.  The  lion  has  a  ferment  within  him, 
that  consumes  the  toughest  skin  and  hardest  bones,  as  well  as 
the  flesh  of  all  animals  without  exception.  Your  squeamish 
stomach,  in  which  the  digestive  heat  is  weak  and  inconsider- 
able, won't  so  much  as  admit  of  the  most  tender  parts  of  them, 
unless  above  half  the  concoction  has  been  performed  by  arti- 
ficial fire  beforehand  ;  and  yet  what  animal  have  you  spared, 
to  satisfy  the  caprices  of  a  languid  appetite  ?  Languid  I  say  ; 
for  what  is  man's  hunger  if  compared  with  the  lion's  ?  Yours, 
when  it  is  at  the  worst,  makes  you  faint ;  mine  makes  me 
mad :  oft  have  I  tried  with  roots  and  herbs  to  allay  the  vio- 
lence of  it,  but  in  vain  ;  nothing  but  large  quantities  of  flesh 
can  any  ways  appease  it."  Allowing  for  the  lion's  not  having 
a  prophetic  instinct  to  take  in  every  lusus  naturae  that  was 
possible  of  the  human  appetite,  he  was,  generally  speaking, 
in  the  right ;  and  the  merchant  was  so  impressed  with  his 
argument  that,  we  are  told,  he  replied  not,  but  fainted  away. 
Oh,  Mr.  Reflector,  that  I  were  not  obliged  to  add,  that  the 
creature  who  thus  argues  was  but  a  type  of  me  !  Miserable 
man !  J  am  that  lion.  "  Oft  have  I  tried  with  roots  and 
herbs  to  allay  that  violence,  but  in  vain ;  nothing  but — "' 

Those  tales  which  are  renewed  as  often  as  the  editors  of 
papers  want  to  fill  up  a  space  in  their  unfeeling  columns,  of 
great  eaters — people  that  devour  whole  geese  and  legs  of 
mutton  for  imagers,  are  sometimes  attempted  to  be  drawn  to  a 
parallel  with  my  case.     This  wilful  confounding  of  motives 

T3 


442  ON    APPETITE. 

and  circumstances,  which  make  all  the  difference  of  moral  or 
immoral  in  actions,  just  suits  the  sort  of  talent  which  some  of 
my  acquaintances  pride  themselves  upon.  Wagers  ! — I  thank 
Heaven,  I  was  never  mercenary,  nor  could  consent  to  prostitute 
a  gift  (though  but  a  left-handed  one)  of  Nature,  to  the  enlarging 
of  my  worldly  substance ;  prudent  as  the  necessities  which 
that  fatal  gift  have  involved  me  in  might  have  made  such  a 
prostitution  to  appear  in  the  eyes  of  an  indelicate  world. 

Rather  let  me  say,  that  to  the  satisfaction  of  that  talent  which 
was  given  me,  I  have  been  content  to  sacrifice  no  common 
expectations  ;  for  such  I  had  from  an  old  lady,  a  near  relation 
of  our  family,  in  whose  good  graces  I  had  the  fortune  to  stand, 

till  one  fatal  evening .     You  have  seen,  Mr.  Reflector, 

if  you  have  ever  passed  your  time  much  in  country  towns,  the 
kind  of  suppers  which  elderly  ladies  in  those  places  have 
lying  in  petto  in  an  adjoining  parlour,  next  to  that  where  they 
are  entertaining  their  periodically-invited  coevals  with  cards 
and  muffins.  The  cloth  is  usually  spread  some  half  hour  be- 
fore the  final  rubber  is  decided,  whence  they  adjourn  to  sup 
upon  what  may  emphatically  be  called  nothing.  A  sliver  of 
ham,  purposely  contrived  to  be  transparent,  to  show  the  china 
dish  through  it,  neighbouring  a  slip  of  invisible  brawn,  which 
abuts  upon  something  they  call  a  tartlet,  as  that  is  bravely 
supported  by  an  atom  of  marmalade,  flanked  in  its  turn  by  a 
grain  of  potted  beef,  with  a  power  of  such  dishlings,  minims 
of  hospitality,  spread  in  defiance  of  human  nature,  or  rather 
with  an  utter  ignorance  of  what  it  demands.  Being  engaged 
at  one  of  these  card-parties,  I  was  obliged  to  go  a  little  before 
supper-time,  (as  they  facetiously  called  the  point  of  time  in 
which  they  are  taking  these  shadowy  refections,)  and  the  old 
lady,  with  a  sort  of  fear  shining  through  the  smile  of  courteous 
hospitality  that  beamed  in  her  countenance,  begged  me  to  step 
into  the  next  room  and  take  something  before  I  went  out  in 
the  cold — a  proposal  which  lay  not  in  my  nature  to  deny. 
Indignant  at  the  airy  prospect  I  saw  before  me,  I  set  to,  and 
in  a  thrice  despatched  the  whole  meal  intended  for  eleven 
persons,  fish,  flesh,  fowl,  pastry — to  the  sprigs  of  garnishing 
parsley,  and  the  last  fearful  custard  that  quaked  upon  the 
board.  I  need  not  describe  the  consternation,  when  in  due 
time  the  dowagers  adjourned  from  their  cards.     Where  was 

the  supper  ?  and  the  servants'  answer,  Mr. had  eat  it  all. 

That  freak,  however,  jested  me  out  of  a  good  three  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  which  I  afterward  was  informed  for  a  cer- 
tainty the  old  lady  meant  to  leave  me.  I  mention  it  not  in 
illustration  of  the  unhappy  faculty  which  I  am  possessed  of; 
for  any  unluckly  wag  of  a  schoolboy,  with  a  tolerable  appetite, 


ON    APPETITE.  443 

could  have  done  as  much  without  feeling  any  hurt  after  it — 
only  that  you  may  judge  whether  I  am  a  man  likely  to  set  my 
talents  to  sale,  or  to  require  the  pitiful  stimulus  of  a  wager. 

I  have  read  in  Pliny,  or  in  some  author  of  that  stamp,  of  a 
reptile  in  Africa,  whose  venom  is  of  that  hot,  destructive 
quality,  that  wheresoever  it  fastens  its  tooth,  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  the  animal  that  has  been  bitten  in  a  few  seconds  is 
reduced  to  dust,  crumblas  away,  and  absolutely  disappears  : 
it  is  called  from  this  quality  the  annilnhitor.  Why  am  1  forced 
to  seek,  in  all  the  most  prodigious  and  portentous  facts  of 
Natural  History,  for  creatures  typical  of  myself.  /  am  that 
snake,  that  annUiilalor  :  "  wherever  I  fasten,  in  a  few  sec- 
onds— " 

Oli  happy  sick  men,  that  are  groaning  under  the  want  of  that 
very  thing,  the  excess  of  which  is  my  torment !  Oh  fortunate, 
too  fortunate,  if  you  knew  your  happiness,  invalids!  What 
would  I  not  give  to  exchange  this  fierce  concoctive  and  di- 
gestive heat — this  rabid  fury  which  vexes  me,  which  tears 
and  torments  me — for  your  quiet,  mortified,  hermit-like,  sub- 
dued, and  sanctified  stomachs — your  cool,  chastened  inclina- 
tions, and  coy  desires  for  food  ! 

To  what  unhappy  figuration  of  the  parts  intestine  I  owe  this 
unnatural  craving,  I  must  leave  to  the  anatomists  and  the  phy- 
sicians to  determine :  they,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  have 
doubtless  their  eye  upon  me  ;  and  as  I  have  been  cut  up  alive 
by  the  sarcasms  of  my  friends,  so  I  shudder  when  I  contem- 
plate the  probability  that  this  animal  frame,  when  its  restless 
appetites  shall  have  ceased  their  importunity,  may  be  cut  up 
also  (horrible  suggestion !)  to  determine  in  what  system  of 
solids  or  fluids  this  original  sin  of  my  constitution  lay  lurking. 
What  work  will  they  make  with  their  acids  and  alkalines,  their 
serums  and  coagulums,  effervescences,  viscious  matter,  bile, 
chyle,  and  acrimonious  juices,  to  explain  that  cause  which 
Nature,  who  willed  the  effect  to  punish  me  for  my  sins,  may 
no  less  have  determined  to  keep  in  the  dark  from  them,  to 
punish  them  for  their  presumption. 

You  may  ask,  Mr.  Reflector,  to  what  purpose  is  my  appeal 
to  you  :  what  can  you  do  for  me  ?  Alas  !  I  know  too  well  that 
my  case  is  out  of  the  reach  of  advice — out  of  the  reach  of 
consolation.  But  it  is  some  relief  to  the  wounded  heart  to 
impart  its  tale  of  misery;  and  some  of  my  acquaintance, 
who  may  read  my  case  in  vour  pages  under  a  borrowed  name, 
may  he  induced  to  give  it  a  more  humane  consideration  than 
I  ootid  ever  vet  obtain  from  them  under  my  own.  Make  them, 
if  possible,  to  rvjicct,  that  an  original  peculiarity  of  constitu- 
tion is  no  crime ;  that  not  that  which  goes  into  the  mouth 


444 


ON    APPETITE. 


desecrates  a  man,  but  that  which  comes  out  of  it — such  as 
sarcasm,  bitter  jests,  mocks,  and  taunts,  and  ill-natured  ob- 
servations ;  and  let  them  consider,  if  there  be  such  things 
(which  we  have  all  heard  of)  as  pious  treachery,  innocent 
adultery,  &c,  whether  there  may  not  be  also  such  a  thing  as 
innocent  gluttony. 

I  shall  only  subscribe  myself 

Your  afflicted  servant, 

Edax. 


CURIOUS  FRAGMENTS, 

EXTRACTED  FROM  A  COMMONPLACE  BOOK,  WHICH  BELONGED  TO 
ROBERT  BURTON,  THE  FAMOUS  AUTHOR  OF  THE  ANATOMY  OF 
MELANCHOLY. 


EXTRACT  I. 

I,  Democritus,  Junior,  have  put  my  finishing  pen  to  a  tractate 
De  Melancholia,  this  day,  December  5,  1620.  First,  I  blesse 
the  Trinity,  which  hath  given  me  health  to  prosecute  my 
worthlesse  studies  thus  far,  and  make  supplication,  with  a 
Laus  Deo,  if  in  any  case  these  my  poor  labours  may  be  found 
instrumental  to  weede  out  black  melancholy,  carking  cares, 
harte-grief,  from  the  mind  of  man.  Scd  hoc  magis  volo  quam 
expecto. 

I  turn  now  to  my  book,  i  nunc  liber,  goe  forth,  my  brave  Anat- 
omy, child  of  my  brain-sweat,  and  yee,  candidi  lectores,  lo  ! 
here  I  give  him  up  to  you,  even  do  with  him  what  you  please, 
my  masters.  Some,  I  suppose,  will  applaud,  commend,  cry 
him  up,  (these  are  my  friends,)  hee  is  a  flos  rarus,  forsooth, 
a  none-such,  a  phoenix,  (concerning  whom  see  Plinius  and 
Mandeuille,  though  Fienus  de  monstris  doubteth  at  large  of 
such  a  bird,  whom  Montaltus  confuting  argueth  to  have  been 
a  man  mala  scrupulositatis,  of  a  weak  and  cowardlie  faith : 
Christopherus  a  Vega  is  with  him  in  this).  Others,  again,  will 
blame,  hiss,  reprehende  in  many  things,  cry  down  altogether 
my  collections,  for  crude,  inept,  putid,  post  ccenum  scripta, 
Coryate  could  write  better  upon  a  full  meal,  verbose,  inerudite, 
and  not  sufficiently  abounding  in  authorities,  dogmata,  sen- 
tences of  learneder  writers  which  have  been  before  me,  when 
as  that  first-named  sort  clean  otherwise  judge  of  my  labours 
to  bee  nothing  else  but  a  mcsse  of  opinions,  a  vortex  attracting 
indiscriminate,  gold,  pearls,  hay,  straw,  wood,  excrement,  an 
exchange,  tavern,  marte,  for  foreigners  to  congregate,  Danes, 
Swedes,  Hollanders,  Lombards,  so  many  strange  faces,  dresses, 
salutations,  languages,  all  which  Wof/ius  behelde  with  great 
content  upon  the  Venetian  Rialto,  as  he  describes  diffusedly 
in  his  book  the  world's  Epitome,  which  Sannazar  so  beprais- 
38 


446  CURIOUS    FRAGMENTS. 

eth,  e  contra  our  Polydore  can  see  nothing  in  it ;  they  call  me 
singular,  a  pedant,  fantastic,  words  of  reproach  in  this  age 
which  is  all  too  meteoric  and  light  for  my  humour. 

One  cometh  to  me  sighing,  complaining.  He  expected 
universal  remedies  in  my  Anatomy  ;  so  many  cures  as  there 
are  distemperatures  among  men.  I  have  not  put  his  affec- 
tion in  my  cases.  Hear  you  his  case.  My  fine  sir  is  a  lover, 
an  inamorato,  a  Pyramus,  a  Romeo ;  he  walks  seven  years 
disconsolate,  moping,  because  he  cannot  enjoy  his  miss,  insa- 
nus  amor  is  his  melancholy,  the  man  is  mad  ;  dclirat,  he 
dotes ;  all  this  while  his  Glycera  is  rude,  spiteful,  not  to  be 
entreated,  churlish,  spits  at  him,  yet  exceeding  fair,  gentle 
eyes,  (which  is  a  beauty,)  hair  lustrous  and  smiling,  the  trope 
is  none  of  mine,  JEneas  Sylvius  hath  crines  ridcntes — in  con- 
clusion she  is  wedded  to  his  rival,  a  boore,  a  Corydon,  a 
rustic,  omnino  ignarus,  he  can  scarce  construe  Corderius,  yet 
haughty,  fantastic,  opiniatre.  The  lover  travels,  goes  into 
foreign  parts,  peregrinates,  amoris  ergo,  sees  manners,  cus- 
toms, not  English,  converses  with  pilgrims,  lying  travellers, 
monks,  hermits,  those  cattle,  pedlers,  travelling  gentry,  Egyp- 
tians, natural  wonders,  unicorns,  (though  Aldobrandus  will 
have  them  to  be  figments,)  satyrs,  semi-viri,  apes,  monkeys 
baboons,  curiosities  artificial,  j>yramides,  Virgilius  his  tomb„, 
relicks,  bones,  which  are  nothing  but  ivory  as  Meluncthon 
judges,  though  Cornutus  leaneth  to  think  them  bones  of  dogs, 
cats,  (why  not  men?)  which  subtill  priests  vouch  to  have 
been  saints,  martyrs,  lieu  Pietas  !  By  that  time  he  ha?  ended 
his  course,  fugit  hora,  seven  other  years  are  expired,  gone 
by,  time  is  he  should  return,  he  taketh  ship  for  Britaine,  much 
desired  of  his  friends,  favebant  venti,  Neptune  is  curteis,  after 
some  weekes  at  sea  he  landeth,  rides  post  to  town,  greets  his 
family,  kinsmen,  compotores,  those  jokers  his  friends  that  were 
wont  to  tipple  with  him  at  alehouses,;  these  wonder  now  to 
see  the  change,  quantum  mutatus,  the  man  is  quite  another 
thing,  he  is  disenthralled,  manumitted,  he  wonders  what  so 
bewitched  him,  he  can  now  both  see,  hear,  smell,  handle,  con- 
verse with  his  mistress,  single  by  reason  of  the  death  of  his 
rival,  a  widow  having  children,  grown  willing,  prompt,  amor- 
ous, showing  no  such  great  dislike  to  second  nuptials,  he 
might  have  her  for  asking,  no  such  thing,  his  mind  is  changed, 
he  loathes  his  former  meat,  had  liever  eat  ratsbane,  aconite, 
Ids  humour  is  to  die  a  bachelour ;  marke  the  conclusion.  In 
this  humour  of  celibate  seven  other  years  are  consumed  in 
idleness,  sloth,  world's  pleasures,  which  fatigate,  satiate,  in- 
duce wearinesse,  vapours,  tadium  vita> :  When  upon  a  day, 
behold  a  wonder,  redit  Amor,  the  man  is  as  sick  as  ever,  he 


CURIOUS    FRAGMENTS.  447 

is  commenced  lover  upon  the  old  stock,  walks  with  his  hand 
thrust  in  his  bosom  for  negligence,  moping  he  leans  his  head, 
face  yellow,  beard  flowing  and  incomposite,  eyes  sunken,  an- 
helus,  breath  wheezy  and  asthmatual,  by  reason  of  over-much 
sighing :  society  he  abhors,  solitude  is  but  a  hell,  what  shall 
he  doe  ?  all  this  while  his  mistresse  is  forward,  coming,  aman- 
tissima,  ready  to  jump  at  once  into  his  mouth,  her  he  hateth, 
feels  disgust  when  she  is  but  mentioned,  thinks  her  ugly,  old, 
a  painted  Jesabecl,  Alecto,  Megara,  and  Tisiphone  all  at 
once,  a  Corinthian  Lais,  a  strumpet,  only  not  handsome ;  that 
which  he  aflecteth  so  much,  that  which  drives  him  mad,  dis- 
tracted, phrenetic,  beside  himself,  is  no  beauty  which  lives, 
nothing  in  reritm  natura,  (so  he  might  entertain  a  hope  of  a 
cure),  but  something  which  is  not,  can  never  be,  a  certain  fan- 
tastic opinion  or  notional  image  of  his  mistresse,  that  which  she 
was,  and  that  which  hee  thought  her  to  be,  in  former  times, 
how  beautiful !  torments  him,  frets  him,  follows  him,  makes 
him  that  he  wishes  to  die. 

This  Caprichio,  Sir  Humourous,  hee  cometh  to  me  to  be 
cured.  I  counsel  marriage  with  his  mistresse,  according  to 
Hippocrates  his  method,  together  with  milk  diet,  herbs,  aloes, 
and  wild  parsley,  good  in  such  cases,  though  Avicenna  prefer- 
red! some  sorts  of  wild  fowl,  teals,  widgeons,  becca  ficos, 
which  men  in  Sussex  eat.  He  flies  out  in  a  passion,  ho  !  ho  ! 
and  falls  to  calling  me  names,  dizzard,  ass,  lunatic,  moper, 
Bedlamite,  Pseudo-Democritus.  I  smile  in  his  face,  bidding 
him  be  patient,  tranquil  ;  to  no  purpose,  he  still  rages,  I  think 
this  man  must  fetch  his  remedies  from  Utopia,  Fairy  Land, 
Islands  in  the  Moone,  &c. 


EXTRACT  II. 

*  *  *  *  Much  disputacyons  of  fierce  wits  amongst  them- 
selves, in  logomachies,  subtile  controversies,  many  dry  blows 
given  on  either  side,  contentions  of  learned  men,  or  such  as 
would  be  so  thought,  as  Bodinus  de  Periodic  saith  of  such  an 
one,  arrident  amici  ridet  mundus,  in  English,  this  man  his  cro- 
nies they  cocker  him  up,  they  flatter  him,  he  would  fayne  ap- 
pear somebody,  meanwhile  the  world  thinks  him  no  better 
than  a  dizzard,  a  ninny,  a  sophist.  *  * 

*  *  *  Philosophy  running  mad,  madness  philosophizing, 
much  idle-learned  inquiries,  what  truth  is  ?  and  no  issue,  fruit, 
of  all  these  noises,  only  huge  books  are  written,  and  who  is 
the  wiser?  *  *  *  *  Men  sitting  in  the  doctor's  chair,  we  mar- 
vel how  they  got  there,  being  homines  intellectus  palverulenti. 


44S  CURIOUS    FRAGMENTS. 

as  Trincauellius  notes  ;  they  care  not  so  they  may  raise  a 
dust  to  smother  the  eyes  of  their  oppugners  ;  homines  parvu- 
lissimi  as  Lemnius,  whom  Alcuin  herein  taxeth  of  a  crude 
Latinism ;  dwarfs,  minims,  the  least  little  men,  these  spend 
their  time,  and  it  is  odds  but  they  lose  their  time  and  wits  too 
into  the  bargain,  chacing  of  nimble  and  retiring  Truth :  her 
they  prosecute,  her  still  they  worship,  libant,  they  make  liba- 
tions, spilling  the  wine,  as  those  old  Romans  in  their  sacrifi- 
cials,  Cerealia,  May-games :  Truth  is  the  game  all  these  hunt 
after,  to  the  extreme  perturbacyon  and  drying  up  of  the  mois- 
tures, humidum  radicale  exsiccant  as  Galen,  in  his  counsels  to 
one  of  these  wear-wits,  brain-moppers,  spunges,  saith.  *  *  *  * 
and  for  all  this  nunquam  metam  attingunt,  and  how  should  they  ? 
they  bowle  awry,  shooting  beside  the  marke  ;  whereas  it  should 
appear,  that  Truth  absolute  on  this  planet  of  ours  is  scarcely 
to  be  found,  but  in  her  stede  Queene  Opinion  predominates, 
governs,  whose  shifting  and  ever  mutable  Lampas,  me  seem- 
eth,  is  man's  destinie  to  follow,  she  prsecurseth,  she  guideth 
him,  before  his  uncapable  eyes  she  frisketh  her  tender  lights, 
which  entertayne  the  child-man,  untill  what  time  his  sight  be 
strong  to  endure  the  vision  of  Very  Truth,  which  is  in  the 
heavens,  the  vision  beatifical,  as  Anianus  expounds  in  his  ar- 
gument against  certain  mad  wits  which  helde  God  to  be  cor- 
poreous  ;  these  were  dizzards,  fools,  gothamites.  ****  but 
and  if  Very  Truth  be  extant  indeede  on  earth,  as  some  hold 
she  it  is  which  actuates  men's  deeds,  purposes,  ye  may  in 
vaine  look  for  her  in  the  learned  universities,  halls,  colleges. 
Truth  is  no  doctoresse,  she  takes  no  degrees  at  Paris  or  Ox- 
ford, amongst  great  clerks,  disputants,  subtile  Aristotles,  men 
nodosi  ingenii,  able  to  take  Lully  by  the  chin,  but  oftentimes  to 
such  an  one  as  myself,  an  Idiota  or  common  person,  no  great 
things,  melancholizing  in  woods  where  waters  are,  quiet 
places  by  rivers,  fountains  ;  whereas  the  silly  man  expecting 
no  such  matter,  thinketh  only  how  best  to  delectate  and  re- 
fresh his  mynde  continually  with  Natura  her  pleasaunt  scenes, 
woods,  waterfalls,  or  Art  her  statelie  gardens,  parks,  ter- 
races, Belvideres,  on  a  sudden  the  goddesse  herself  Truth  has 
appeared,  with  a  shyning  lyghte,  and  a  sparklyng  countenance, 
so  as  yee  may  not  be  able  lightly  to  resist  her.  *  *  *  * 


EXTRACT  III. 

This  morning,  May  2,  16G2,  having  first  broken  my  fast 
upon  eggs  and  cooling  salades,  mellows,  water-cresses,  those 
herbes,  according  to  Villanovus  Ins  prescription,  who  disal- 


CURIOUS    FRAGMENTS.  449 

lows  the  use  of  meat  in  a  morning  as  gross,  fat,  hebetant, 
feral,  altogether  fitter  for  wild  beasts  than  men,  e  contra  com- 
mendeth  this  herb-diete  for  gentle,  humane,  active,  conducing  to 
contemplation  in  most  men,  I  betook  myselfe  to  the  nearest 
fields.  (Being  in  London  I  commonly  dwell  in  the  suburbes, 
as  airest,  quietest,  loci  musis  propriares,  free  from  noises  of 
caroches,  waggons,  mechanick,  and  base  workes,workshoppes, 
also  sights,  pageants,  spectacles  of  outlandish  birds,  fishes, 
crocodiles,  Indians,  mermaids,  adde  quarrels,  lightings,  wnn id- 
lings of  the  common  sort,  plebs,  the  rabble,  duelloes  with  fists, 
proper  to  this  island,  at  which  the  stilettoed  and  secrete  Italian 
laughs.)  Withdrawing  myselfe  from  these  buzzing  and  illit- 
erate vanities,  with  a  bezo  las  manos  to  the  city,  I  begin  to  in- 
hale, draw  in,  snuff  up,  as  horses  dilatus  naribus  snort  the 
fresh  aires,  with  exceeding  great  delight,  when  suddenly  there 
crosses  me  a  procession  sad,  heavy,  dolourous,  tristfull,  mel- 
ancholick,  able  to  change  mirth  into  dolour,  and  overcast  a 
clearer  atmosphere  than  possibly  the  neighbourhoods  of  so 
great  a  citty  can  afford.  An  old  man,  a  poore  man  deceased,  is 
borne  on  men's  shoulders  to  a  poore  buriall,  without  solemni- 
ties of  hearse,  mourners,  plumes,  muta  persona,  those  person- 
ate actors  that  will  weep  if  yee  shew  them  a  piece  of  silver  ; 
none  of  those  customed  civilities  of  children,  kinsfolk,  depend- 
ants,, following  the  coffin ;  he  died  a  poore  man,  his  friends 
assessores  opum,  those  cronies  of  his  that  stuck  by  him  so  long 
as  he  had  a  penny,  now  leave  him,  forsake  him,  shun  him,  de- 
sert him;  they  think  it  much  to  follow  his  putrid  and  stinking 
carcase  to  the  grave  ;  his  children,  if  he  had  any,  for  commonly 
the  case  stands  thus,  this  poore  man  his  son  dies  before  him, 
he  survives,  poore,  indigent,  base,  dejected,  miserable,  <fcc,  or 
if  he  have  any  which  survive  him,  sua  negotia  agunt,  they 
mind  their  own  business,  forsooth,  cannot,  will  not,  find  time, 
leisure,  inclination,  cxtremum  munus  perficere,  to  follow  to  the 
pit  their  old  indulgent  father,  which  loved  them,  stroked  them, 
caressed  them,  cockering  them  up,  quantum  potuit,  as  farre  as 
his  means  extended,  while  they  were  babes,  chits,  minims,  hee 
may  rot  in  his  grave,  lie  stinking  in  the  sun  for  them,  have  no 
buriall  at  all,  they  care  not.  Oh  nefas  !  Chiefly  I  noted  the 
coffin  to  have  been  without  a  pall,  nothing  but  a  few  planks,  of 
cheapest  wood  that  could  be  had,  naked,  having  none  of  the 
ordinary  symtomata  of  a  funerall,  those  locularii  which  bare 
the  body  having  on  diversely-coloured  coats,  and  none  black  : 
(one  of  these  reported  the  deceased  to  have  been  an  almsman 
seven  yeares,  a  pauper,  harboured  and  fed  in  the  workhouse  of 
St.  Giles-in-the-Fields,  to  whose  proper  burying-ground  he  was 
now  going  for  interment.)  All  which  when  I  behelde,  hardly 
38# 


450  CURIOUS    FRAGMENTS. 

I  refrained  from  weeping,  and  incontinently  I  fell  to  musing : 
"  If  this  man  had  been  rich,  a  Croesus,  a  Crassus,  or  as  rich 
as  Whittington,  what  pompe,  charge,  lavish  cost,  expenditure, 
of  rich  buriall,  ceremoniall-obsequies,  obsequious  ceremonies,  had 
been  thought  too  good  for  such  an  one  ;  what  store  of  panegyr- 
icks,  elogies,  funeral  orations,  &c.  some  beggarly  poetaster, 
worthy  to  be  beaten  for  his  ill  rimes,  crying  him  up,  hee  was 
rich,  generous,  bountiful,  polite,  learned,  a  Mcecenas,  while  as 
in  very  deede  he  was  nothing  lesse ;  what  weeping,  sighing, 
sorrowing,  honing,  complaining  kinsmen,  friends,  relatives, 
fourtieth  cousins,  poor  relatives,  lamenting  for  the  deceased ; 
hypocriticall  heirs,  sobbing,  striking  their  breasts  ;  (they  care 
not  if  he  had  died  a  year  ago) ;  so  many  clients,  dependants, 
flatterers,  parasites,  cunning  Gnathoes,  tramping  on  foot  after 
the  hearse,  all  their  care  is,  who  shall  stand  fairest  with  the  suc- 
cessour ;  he  meantime  (like  enough)  spurns  them  from  him, 
spits  at  them,  treads  them  under  his  foot,  will  have  nought  to 
do  with  any  such  cattle.  I  think  him  in  the  right :  Hcec  sunt 
majora  gravitate  Heracliti.  These  follies  are  enough  to  give 
crying  Heraclitus  a  Jit  of  the  spleene^ 


M  R.   H , 

A  FARCE— IN   TWO   ACTS, 

AS  IT  WAS  PERFORMED  AT  DRURY  LANE  THEATRE, 
DECEMBER,  1806. 


"  Mr.  H ,  thou  wert  damned.  Bright  shone  the  morning  on  the  play- 
bills that  announced  thy  appearance,  and  the  streets  were  filled  with  the  buzz 
of  persons  asking  one  another  if  they  would  go  to  see  Mr.  H ,  and  answer- 
ing that  they  would  certainly;  but  before  night  the  gayety,  not  of  the  author, 
but  of  his  friends  and  the  town,  was  eclipsed,  for  thou  wert  damned  !  Hadst 
thou  been  anonymous,  thou  haply  mightst  have  lived.  But  thou  didst  come 
to  an  untimely  end  for  thy  tricks,  and  for  want  of  a  better  name  to  pass  them 
off." —  Theatrical  Examiner. 


CHARACTERS. 


Mr.  H , Mr.  Elliston. 

Belvil, Mr.  Hartley. 

Landlord  Pry, Mr.  Wewitzen 

Melesinda, Miss  Mellon 

Maid  to  Melesinda, Mrs.  Harlowe 

Gentlemen  Ladies,  Waiters,  Servants,  &c. 
Scene — Bath. 


PROLOGUE. 

SPOKEN  BY  MR.  ELLISTON 


If  we  have  sinn'd  in  paring  down  a  name, 

All  civil,  well-bred  authors  do  the  same. 

Survey  the  columns  of  our  daily  writers — 

You'll  find  that  some  Initials  are  great  fighters. 

How  fierce  the  shock,  how  fatal  is  the  jar, 

When  Ensign  W.  meets  Lieutenant  R. 

With  two  stout  seconds,  just  of  their  own  gizzard, 

Cross  Captain  X.  and  rough  old  General  Izzard! 

Letter  to  letter  spreads  the  dire  alarms, 

Till  half  the  alphabet  is  up  in  arms. 

Nor  with  less  lustre  have  Initials  shone, 

To  grace  the- gentler  annals  of  Crim.  Con., 

Where  the  dispensers  of  the  public  lash 

Soft  penance  give  ;  a  letter  and  a  dash — 

Where  vice  reduced  in  size  shrinks  to  a  failing, 

And  loses  half  her  grossness  by  curtailing. 

Faux  pas  are  told  in  such  a  modest  way — 

The  affair  of  Colonel  B.  with  Mrs.  A. — 

You  must  forgive  them — for  what  is  there,  say, 

Which  such  a  pliant  vowel  must  not  grant 

To  such  a  very  pressing  consonant  ? 

Or  who  poetic  justice  dares  dispute, 

When  mildly  melting  at  a  lover's  suit. 

The  wife's  a  liquid,  her  good  man  a  mute  T 

Even  in  the  homelier  scenes  of  honest  life, 

The  coarse-spun  intercourse  of  man  and  wife, 

Initials,  I  am  told,  have  taken  place 

Of  deary,  spouse,  and  that  oldfashioned  race  ; 

And  Cabbage,  ask'dby  Brother  Snip  to  tea, 

Replies,  "  I'll  come — but  it  don't  rest  with  me — 

I  always  leaves  them  things  to  Mrs.  C." 

Oh  should  this  mincing  fashion  ever  spread 

From  names  of  living  heroes  to  the  dead, 

How  would  ambition  sigh,  and  hang  the  head, 

As  each  loved  syllable  should  melt  away — 

Her  Alexander  turned  into  Great  A. — 

A  single  C.  her  Cesar  to  express — 

Her  Scipio  shrunk  into  a  Roman  S. — 

And  nick'd  and  dock'd  to  these  new  modes  of  speech, 

Great  Hannibal  himself  a  Mr.  H. 


M  R.  H . 

A   FARCE— IN    TWO   ACTS. 


ACT  I. 

Scene. — A  Public  Room  in  an  Inn.    Landlord,  Waiters,  Gen- 
tlemen, <$fC. 

Enter  Mr.  H. 

Mr.  H.  Landlord,  has  the  man  brought  home  my  boots  ? 

Landlord.  Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  H.  You  have  paid  him  1 

Landlord.  There  is  the  receipt,  sir,  only  not  quite  filled  up  ; 
no  name  ;  only  blank — "  Blank,  Dr.  to  Zekiel  Spanish  for  one 
pair  of  best  hessians."  Now,  sir,  he  wishes  to  know  what 
name  he  shall  put  in  ;  who  he  shall  say  "  Dr." 

Mr.  H.  Why,  Mr.  H.,  to  be  sure. 

Landlord.  So  I  told  him,  sir  ;  but  Zekiel  has  some  qualms 
about  it.  He  says,  he  thinks  that  Mr.  H.  only  would  not  stand 
good  in  law. 

Mr.  H.  Rot  his  impertinence,  bid  him  put  in  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, and  not  trouble  me  with  his  scruples. 

Landlord.  I  shall,  sir.  [Exit. 

Enter  a  Waiter. 

Waiter.  Sir,  Squire  Level's  man  is  below,  with  a  hare  and 
a  brace  of  pheasants  for  Mr.  H. 

Mr.  H.  Give  the  man  half  a  crown,  and  bid  him  return  my 
best  respects  to  his  master.  Presents,  it  seems,  will  find  me 
out,  with  any  name  or  no  name. 

Enter  2d  Waiter. 

2d  Waiter.  Sir,  the  man  that  makes  up  the  directory  is  at  th« 
door. 


456  MR.    H ,    A    FARCE. 

Mr.  H.  Give  him  a  shilling,  that  is  what  these  fellows  come 
for. 

2d  Waiter.  He  has  sent  up  to  know  by  what  name  your 
honour  will  please  to  be  inserted. 

Mr.  H.  Zounds,  fellow,  I  give  him  a  shilling  for  leaving  out 
my  name,  not  for  putting  it  in.  This  is  one  of  the  plaguy 
comforts  of  going  anonymous.  [Exit  2d  Waiter. 

Enter  3d  Waiter. 

3d  Waiter.  Two  letters  for  Mr.  H.  [Exit. 

Mr.  H.  From  ladies  (opens  them.)  This  from  Melesinda, 
to  remind  me  of  the  morning  call  I  promised  ;  the  pretty  crea- 
ture positively  languishes  to  be  made  Mrs.  H.  I  believe  I 
must  indulge  her  (affeetedly.)  This  from  her  cousin  to  be- 
speak me  to  some  party,  I  suppose  (opening  it) — Oh,  "  this 
evening" — "  Tea  and  cards" — (surveying  himself  tvitk  compla- 
cency.) Dear  H,,  thou  art  certainly  a  pretty  fellow.  I  won- 
der what  makes  thee  such  a  favourite  among  the  ladies  ;  I 
wish  it  may  not  be  owing  to  the  concealment  of  thy  unfortu- 
nate— pshaw  ! 

Enter  4th  Waiter. 

4th   Waiter.  Sir.  one  Mr,  Printagain  is  inquiring  for  you. 

Mr.  H.  Oh,  I  remember,  the  poet ;  he  is  publishing  by 
subscription.  Give  him  a  guinea,  and  tell  him  to  put  me 
down. 

4th  Waiter.  What  name  shall  I  tell  him,  sir  ? 

Mr.  II.  Zounds,  he  is  a  poet ;  let  him  fancy  a  name. 

[Exit  4th  Waiter. 

Enter  5th   Waiter. 

oth  Waiter.  Sir,  Bartlemy,  the  lame  beggar  that  you  sent  a 
private  donation  to  last  Monday,  has  by  some  accident  dis- 
covered his  benefactor,  and  is  at  the  door  waiting  to  return 
thanks. 

Mr.  II.  Oh,  poor  fellow,  who  could  put  it  into  his  head  \ 
Now  I  shall  be  teazed  by  all  his  tribe,  when  once  this  is 
known.  Well,  tell  him  I  am  glad  I  could  be  of  any  service 
to  him,  and  send  him  away. 

5lh  Waiter.  I  would  have  done  so,  sir ;  but  the  object  of 
his  call  now,  he  says,  is  only  to  know  whom  he  is  obliged  to. 

Mr.  II.  Why,  me. 

5lh  Waiter.  Yes,  sir. 


MR.   H ,  A   FARCE.  457 

Mr.  H.  Me,  me,  me ;  who  else,  to  be  sure  ? 

5th  Waiter.  Yes,  sir;  but  he  is  anxious  to  know  the  namo 
of  his  benefactor. 

Mr.  II.  Here  is  a  pampered  rogue  of  a  beggar,  that  cannot 
be  obliged  to  a  gentleman  in  the  way  of  his  profession,  but  he 
must  know  the  name,  birth,  parentage,  and  education  of  his 
benefactor.  I  warrant  you,  next  he  will  require  a  certificate 
of  one's  good  behaviour,  and  a  magistrate's  license  in  one's 
pocket,  lawfully  empowering  so  and  so  to — give  an  alms. 
Anything  more  ? 

5th  Waiter.  Yes,  sir:  here  has  been  Mr.  Patriot,  with  tho 
county  petition  to  sign ;  and  Mr.  Failtime,  that  owes  so 
much  money,  has  sent  to  remind  you  of  your  promise  to 
bail  him. 

Mr.  II.  Neither  of  which  I  can  do,  while  I  have  no  name. 
Here  is  more  of  the  plaguy  comforts  of  going  anonymous,  that 
one  can  neither  serve  one's  friend  nor  one's  country.  Damn 
it,  a  man  had  better  be  without  a  nose  than  without  a  name. 
I  will  not  live  long  in  this  mutilated,  dismembered  state  ;  I 
will  to  Melesinda  this  instant,  and  try  to  forget  these  vexations. 
Melesinda !  there  is  music  in  the  name ;  but  then,  hang  it, 
there  is  none  in  mine  to  answer  to  it.  [Exit. 

{While  Mr.  H.  has  been  speaking,  two  gentlemen  have 
been  observing  him  curious-'i/-) 

1st  Gent.  Who  the  devil  is  this  extraordinary  personage? 

2d  Gent.  Who?  why,  'tis  Mr.  H. 

1st   Gent.  Has  he  no  more  name? 

2d  Gent.  None  that  has  yet  transpired.  No  more !  why 
that  single  letter  has  been  enough  to  in  (lame  the  imaginations 
of  all  the  ladies  in  Bath.  He  has  been  here  but  a  fortnight, 
and  is  already  received  into  all  the  first  families. 

1st  Gent.  Wonderful !  yet  nobody  know  who  he  is,  or 
where  .he  comes  from  ! 

2d  Gent.  He  is  vastly  rich,  gives  away  money  as  if  he  had 
infinity;  dresses  well,  as  you  see  ;  and  for  address,  the  moth- 
ers are  all  dying  for  fear  the  daughters  should  get  him ;  and 
for  the  daughters,  he  may  command  them  as  absolutely  as — 
Melesinda,  the  rich  heiress,  'tis  thought,  will  carry  him. 

1st  Gent.  And  is  it  possible  that  a  mere  anonymous — 

2d  Gent.  Phoo !  that  is  the  charm — Who  is  he  ?  and  what 
is  he  ?  and  what  is  his  name  ?  The  man  with  the  great  nose 
on  his  face  never  excited  more  of  the  gaping  passion  of  won- 
derment in  the  dames  of  Strasburg.  than  this  new-comer  with 
the  single  letter  to  his  name  has  lighted  up  among  the 
wives  and  maids  of  Bath  :  his  simply  having  lodgings  here 

39  U 


458 


draws  more  visiters  to  the  house    than  an  election.     Come 
with  me  to  the  parade,  and  I  will  show  you  more  of  him. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene  in  the  Street. 
Mr.  H.  walking,  Belvil  meeting  him. 

Belvil.  My  old  Jamaica  schoolfellow,  that.  I  have  not  seen 
for  so  many  years  ?  it  must — it  can  be  no  other  than  Jack 
{go'iig  up  to  him.)     My  dear  Ho — 

Mr.  H.  {Stopping  his  month)  Ho — !  the  devil,  hush. 

Belvil.  Why  sure  it  is — 

Mr.  H.  It  is.  it  is  your  old  friend  Jack,  that  shall  be  name- 
less. 

Belvil.  My  dear  Ho — 

Mr.  H.  (Stopping  him)  Don't  name  it. 

Belvil.  Name  what? 

Mr.  H.  My  cursed  unfortunate  name.  I  have  reasons  to 
conceal  it  for  a  time. 

Belvil.  I  understand  you — creditors,  Jack  ? 

Mr.  H.  No,  I  assure  you. 

Belvil.  Snapp'd  up  a  ward,  peradventure,  and  the  whole 
chancery  at  your  heels? 

Mr.  H.  I  don't  use  to  travel  with  such  cumbersome  lug- 
gage. 

Belvil.  You  han't  taken  a  purse  ? 

Mr.  H.  To  relieve  you  at  once  from  all  disgraceful  conjec- 
tures, you  must  know,'tis  nothing  but  the  sound  of  my  name. 

Belvil.  Ridiculous !  'tis  true,  yours  is  none  of  the  most  ro- 
mantic :  but  what  can  that  signify  in  a  man? 

Mr.  H.  You  must  understand  that  I  am  in  some  credit  with 
the  ladies. 

Belvil.  With  the  ladies  ! 

Mr.  H.  And,  truly,  I  think  not  without  some  pretensions. 
My  fortune — 

Belvil.  Sufficiently  splendid,  if  I  may  judge  from  your  ap- 
pearance. 

Mr.  H.  My  figure— 

Belvil.  Airy,  gay,  and  imposing. 

Mr.  H.   My  parts — 

Belvil.  Bright. 

Mr.  II.   My  conversation — 

Belvil.  Equally  remote  from  flippancy  and  taciturnity. 

Mr.  II.  But  then  my  name — damn  my  name. 

Belvil.  Childish! 

Mr.  H.  Not  so.     Oh,  Belvil,  you  are  blessed  with  one 


MR.   II ,  A    FARCE.  459 

which  sighing  virgins  may  repeat  without  a  hlush,  and   fur  it 
change  the  paternal      But  what  virgin  of  any  delicacy  (and  I 

require  some  in  a  wife)  would  endure  to  be  called  .Mrs. ? 

Belvil.  Ha — ha — ha!  most  absurd.  Did  not  Clementina 
Falconbridge,  the  romantic  Clementina  Falconbridge,  fancy 
Tommy  Potts  I  and  Rosabella  Sweetlips  sacrifice  her  mellif- 
luous appellative  to  Jack  Deady  I  .Matilda,  Iter  cousin,  mar- 
ried a  Gubbins,  and  her  sister  Amelia  a  Clulterbuck. 

Mr.  II.  Potts  is  tolerable,  Deady  is  sufierable,  Gubbins  is 
bearable,  and  Clntterbuck  is  endurable,  but  Ho — 

Belvil.  Hush,  Jack,  don't  betray  yourself.  Cut  you  are 
really  ashamed  of  the  family  name? 

Mr.  II.  Ay,  and  of  my  father  that  begot  me,  and  my 
father's  father,  and  all  their  forefathers  that  have  borne  it 
snu  e  the  conquest. 

Belvil.   Put  how  do  you  know  the  women  are  so  squeamish  ? 
Mr.  H.   I    have  tried  them.     I    tell    you    there   is   neither 
maiden  of  sixteen  nor  widow  of  sixty  but  would  turn  up  their 
noses  at  it.      I  have  been  refused  by  nineteen  virgins,  twenty- 
nine  relicts,  and  two  old  maids. 

Belvil.  That  was  hard,  indeed,  Jack. 

Mr.  H.  Parsons  have  stuck  at  publishing  the  banns,  be- 
cause they  averred  it  was  a  heathenish  name  ;  parents  have 
lingered  their  consent,  because  they  suspected  it  was  a  ficti- 
tious name  ;  and  rivals  have  declined  my  challenges,  because 
they  pretended  it  was  an  ungentlemanly  name. 

Belvil.  Ha — ha — ha !  but  what  course  do  you  mean  to 
pursue  ? 

Mr.  H.  To  engage  the  affections  of  some  generous  girl, 
who  will  be  content  to  take  mc  as  Mr.  H. 
Belvil.  Mr.  H.  ? 

Mr.  II  Yes,  that  is  the  name  I  go  by  here  ;  you  know  one 
likes  to  be  as  near  the  truth  as  possible. 

Belvil.  Certainly.     But  what  then  ?  to  get  her  to  consent — 

Mr.  H.   To  accompany  me  to  the  altar  without  a  name — in 

short,  to   suspend   the    curiosity  (that  is  all)  till   the   moment 

the    priest   shall    pronounce    the    irrevocable    charm,    which 

makes  two  names  one. 

Belvil.  And  that  name — and  then  she  must  be  pleased,  ha, 
Jack? 

Mr.  II.  Exactly  such  a  girl  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  meet 
with;  hark'e  (whispers) — (musing)  yet  hang  it, 'tis  cruel  to 
betray  her  confidence. 

Belvil.   But  the  family  name,  Jack. 

Mr.  II.  As  you  say,  the  family  name  must  be  perpetuated. 
Belvil.  Though  it  be  but  a  homely  one. 
U2 


-160  MR.   H ,  A    FARCE. 

Mr.  H.  True,  but  come,  I  will  show  you  the  house  where 
dwells  this  credulous,  melting  fair. 

Belvil.  Ha — ha — my  old  friend  dwindled  down  to  one 
letter.  [Exeunt. 

Scene. — An  Apartment  in  Melesinda's  House. 

Melesinda  sola,  as  if  musing. 

Melesinda.  H.,  H.,  H.  Sure,  it  must  be  something  precious 
by  its  being  concealed.  It  can't  be  Homer,  that  is  a  heathen's 
name  ;  nor  Horatio,  that,  is  uo  surname  ;  what  if  it  be  Ham- 
let ?  the  Lord  Hamlet  — pretty,  and  I  his  poor  distracted 
Ophelia  !  No,  'tis  none  of  these  ;  'tis  Harcourt,  or  Hargrave, 
or  some  such  sounding  name,  or  Howard,  high-born  Howard, 
that  would  do ;  maybe  it  is  Harlcy,  methinks  my  H.  resem- 
bles Harley,  the  feeling  Harley.  But  I  hear  him,  and  from 
his  own  lips  I  will  once  for  ever  he  resolved. 

Enter  Mr.  H. 

Mr.  H.  My  dear  Melesinda. 

Melesinda.  My  dear  H. — that  is  all  you  give  me  power  to 
swear  allegiance  to — to  be  enamoured  of  inarticulate  sounds, 
and  call  with  sighs  upon  an  empty  letter.     But  I  will  know. 

Mr.  H.  My  dear  Melesinda,  press  me  no  more  for  the  dis- 
closure of  ibat  which  in  the  face  of  day  so  soon  must  be 
revealed.  Call  it  whim,  humour,  caprice  in  me.  Suppose  I 
have  sworn  an  oath  never,  till  the  ceremony  of  our  marriage 
is  over,  to  disclose  my  true  name. 

Melesinda.  Oh  !  H,  H.,  H.  I  cherish  here  a  fire  of  rest- 
less curiosity  which  consumes  me.  'Tis  appetite,  passion, 
call  it  whim,  caprice  in  me.  Suppose  I  have  sworn  I  must 
and  will  know  it  this  very  night. 

Mr.  H.  Ungenerous  Melesinda!  I  implore  you  to  give  me 
tins  one  proof  of  your  confidence.  The  holy  vow  once  past, 
your  H.  shall  not  have  a  secret  to  withhold. 

Melesinda.  My  II.  has  overcome:  his  Melesinda  shall 
pine  away  and  die,  before  she  dare  express  a  saucy  inclina- 
tion ;   but  what  shall  I  call  you  till  we  are  married  ? 

Mr.  H.  Call  me?  call  me  anything;  call  me  Love,  Love! 
ay,  Love  ;   Love  will  do  very  well. 

Melesinda.  How  many  syllables  is  it,  Love? 

Mr.  II.  How  many  ?  ud,  that  is  coming  to  the  question 
with  a  vengeance.  One,  two,  three,  four — what  does  it  sig- 
nify how  many  syllables? 

Melesinda.  How  many  syllables,  Love? 


MR.   II ,   A     FAUCE  4G1 

Mr.  H.  My  Melesimla's  mind,  I  had  hoped,  was  superior 
to  this  childish  cariosity. 

Melcsinda.  How  many  letters  are  there  in  it? 

[Exit  Mr.  II.  followed  by  Mklesinda  repeating  the 
qut  stion. 

Scene. — A  Room  in  the  Inn. 

[Tiro  Waiters  disputing.) 

1st  Waiter.  Sir  Harbottle  Hammond,  you  may  depend  upon 
it. 

2d  Waiter.   Sir  Harry  Ilardcastle,  I  tell  you. 

1st  Waiter.  The  Hammonds  of  Huntingdonshire-. 

2d  Waiter.   The  Hardcastles  of  Hertfordshire. 

1st  Waiter.   The  Hammonds. 

2d  Waiter.  Don't  tell  me  :  does  not  Hardcastle  begin  with 
an  H? 

\st  Waiter.   So  does  Hammond,  for  that  matter. 

2d  Waiter.  Faith,  so  it  does,  if  you  go  to  spell  it.  1  did 
not  think  of  that.  I  begin  to  be  of  your  opinion  ;  he  is  cer- 
tainly a  Hammond. 

1st  Waiter.  Here  comes  Susan  Chambermaid,  maybe  she 
can  tell. 

Enter  Susan. 

Both.  Well,  Susan,  have  you  heard  anything  who  the  strange 
gentleman  is  ? 

Susan.  Haven't  you  heard?  it's  all  come  out;  Mrs.  Guess- 
well,  the  parson's  widow,  has  been  here  about  it.  I  over- 
heard her  talking  in  confidence  to  Mrs.  Setter  and  Mrs. 
Pointer,  and  she  says  they  were  holding  a  sort  of  a  cummitty 
about  it. 

Both.  What?     What? 

Susan.  There  can't  be  a  doubt  of  it,  she  savs,  what  from 
his  Jigger  and  the  appearance  he  cuts,  and  his  svmpshous 
way  of  living,  and,  above  all,  from  the  remarkable  circum- 
stance that  his  surname  should  begin  with  an  H.,  that  he  must 
be— 

Both.  Well,  well— 

Susan.  Neither  more  nor  less  than  the  prince. 

Both.  Prince  ! 

Susan.   The  Prince  of  Hessey-Cassel  in  disguise. 

Both.    Very  likely,  very  likely. 

Susan.  Oh,  there  can't  be  a  doubt  on  it.  Mrs.  Guesswell 
says  she  knows  it. 

1st  Waiter.  Now  if  we  could  be  sure  that  the  Prince  of 
39* 


462  MR.    H ,    A    FARCE. 

Hessey   What-do-you-call-him  was   in  England  on  his  trav- 
els. 

2d  Waiter.  Get  a  newspaper.     Look  in  the  newspapers. 

Susan.  Fiddle  of  the  newspapers  ;  who  else  can  it  be? 

Both.  That  is  very  true  (gravely.) 

Enter  Landlord. 

Landlord.  Here,  Susan,  James,  Philip,  where  are  you  all? 
The  London  coach  is  come  in,  and  there  is  Mr.  Fillaside,  the 
fat  passenger,  has  been  bawling  for  somebody  to  help  him  off 
with  his  boots. 

(The.  Chambermaid  and  Waiters  slip  out.) 

(Solus.)  The  house  is  turned  upside  down  since  the  strange 
gentleman  came  into  it.  Nothing  but  guessing  and  specu- 
lating, and  speculating  and  guessing;  waiters  and  chamber- 
maids getting  into  corners  and  speculating,  hostlers  and  stable- 
boys  speculating  in  the  yard,  I  believe  the  very  horses  in  the 
stable  are  speculating  too,  for  there  they  stand  in  a  musing  pos- 
ture, nothing  for  them  to  eat,  and  not  seeming  to  care  whether 
they  have  anything  or  no  ;  and,  after  all,  what  does  it  signify  ? 
I  hate  such  curious — odso,  I  must  take  this  box  up  into  his 
bedroom — he  charged  me  to  see  to  it  myself — I  hate  such 
inquisitive — I  wonder  what  is  in  it,  it  feels  heavy  (reads) 
"Leases,  title-deeds,  wills."  Here,  now,  a  man  might  satisfy 
his  curiosity  at  once.  Deeds  must  have  names  to  them,  so 
must  leases  and  wills.  But  I  wouldn't — no,  1  wouldn't — it  is  a 
pretty  box  too — prettily  dovetailed — I  admire  the  fashion  of  it 
much.  But  I'd  cut  my  fingers  oft",  before  I'd  do  such  a  dirty 
— what  have  I  to  do — curse  the  keys,  how  they  rattle — rattle 
in  one's  pockets — the  keys  and  the  halfpence  (takes  out 
a  bunch  and  plays  with  them.)  I  wonder  if  any  of  these 
would  fit;  one  might  just  try  them,  but  I  wouldn't  lift  up 
the  lid  if  they  did.  Oh,  no,  what  should  1  be  the  richer 
for  knowing?  (All  this  time  he  tries  the  keys  one  by  one.) 
What's  his  name  to  be?  a  thousand  names  begin  with  an  H. 
1  hate  people  that  are  always  prying,  poking  and  prying  into 
things — thrusting  their  linger  into  one  place — a  mighty  little 
hole  this — and  their  keys  into  another.  Oh  Lord  !  little  rusty 
fits  it!  but  what  is  that  to  me?  I  wouldn't  go  to — no,  no — but 
it.  is  odd  little  rusty  should  just  happen.  (While  he  is  turning 
tip  the  lid  of  the  box,  Mr.  II.  enters  behind  him  unper- 
ccired.) 

Mr.  11.  What  arc  you  about,  you  dog? 

Landlord    Oh   Lord,  sir!   pardon;  no  thief,  as  I  hope  to 
be  saved.     Little  Pry  was  always  honest. 


MR.   11 ,    A    FARCE.  463 

Mr.  II.   What  else  could  move  you  to  open  that  box  ? 

Landlord.  Sir,  don't  kill  me,  and  I  will  confess  the  whole 
truth.  This  box  happened  to  be  lying — that  is,  I  happened 
to  be  carrying  this  box,  and  I  happened  to  have  my  keys  out, 
and  so — little  rusty  happened  to  lit — 

Mr.  H.  So  little  rusty  happened  to  fit! — and  would  not  a 
rope  fit  that  rogue's  neck  ?  [see  tli<j  papers  have  not  been 
moved:  all  is  safe,  hut  it  was  as  well  to  frighten  him  a  little 
{aside.)  Come,  landlord,  as  1  think  you  are  honest,  and  sus- 
pect j  on  only  intended  to  gratify  a  little  foolish  curiosity — 

Landlord.   That  was  all,  sir,  upon  my  veracity. 

Mr.  II.  For  this  time  I  will  pass  it  over.  Your  name  is 
Pry,  1  think. 

Landlord.  Yes,  sir,  Jeremiah  Pry,  at  your  service. 

Mr.  II.  An  apt  name,  you  have  a  prying  temper.  I  mean, 
some  little  curiosity,  a  sort  of  inquisitiveness  about  you. 

Landlord.  A  natural  thirst  after  knowledge  you  may  call  it, 
sir.  When  a  boy  I  was  never  easy,  but  when  I  was  thrust- 
ing up  the  lids  of  some  of  my  schoolfellows'  boxes* — not 
to  steal  anything,  upon  my  honour,  sir — only  to  see  what 
was  in  them  ;  have  had  pens  stuck  in  my  eyes  for  peeping 
through  keyholes,  after  knowledge  ;  could  never  see  a  cold 
pie  with  the  legs  dangling  out  at  top,  but  my  fingers  were  for 
lifting  up  the  crust— just  to  try  if  it  were  pigeon  or  partridge 
— for  no  other  reason  in  the  world.  Surely  I  think  my  pas- 
sion for  nuts  was  owing  to  the  pleasure  of  cracking  the  shell 
to  get  at  something  concealed,  more  than  to  any  delight  I  took 
in  eating  the  kernel.  In  short,  sir,  this  appetite  has  grown 
with  my  growth. 

Mr.  II.  You  will  certainly  be  hanged  some  day  for  peeping 
into  some  bureau  or  other,  just  to  see  what  is  in  it. 

Landlord.  That  is  my  tear,  sir.  The  thumps  and  kicks  I 
have  had  for  peering  into  parcels,  and  turning  of  letters  inside 
out — just  for  curiosity  !  The  blankets  I  have  been  made  to 
dance  in  for  searching  parish-registers  for  old  ladies'  ages — 
just  for  curiosity!  Once  I  was  dragged  through  a  horse- 
pond,  only  for  peeping  into  a  closet  that  had  glass  doors  to  ir, 
while  my  Lady  Bluegarters  was  undressing — just  for  curiosity  ! 

Mr.  II.  A  very  harmless  piece  of  curiosity,  truly  ;  and  now, 
Mr.  Pry,  first  have  the  goodness  to  leave  that  box  with  me, 
and  then  do  me  the  favour  to  carry  your  curiosity  so  far  as  to 
inquire  if  mv  servants  are  within. 

Landlord.  I  shall,  sir.  Here,  David,  Jonathan — I  think  I 
hear  them  coming — shall  make  bold  to  leave  you.  sir.     [Exit. 

Mr  II.  Another  tolerable  specimen  of  the  comforts  of  going 
anonymous  ! 


464  MR.  H ,    A    FARCE. 


Enter  two  Footmen. 

1st  Footman.  You  speak  first. 

2d  Footman.  No,  you  had  better  speak. 

1st  Footman.  You  promised  to  begin. 

Mr.  H.  They  have  something  to  say  to  me.  The  rascals 
want  their  wages  raised,  I  suppose ;  there  is  always  a  favour 
to  be  asked  when  they  come  smiling.  Well,  poor  rogues,  ser- 
vice is  but  a  hard  bargain  at  the  best.  I  think  1  must  not  be 
close  with  them.     Well,  David — well,  Jonathan. 

1st  Footman.  We  have  served  your  honour  faithfully — 

2d  Footman.  Hope  your  honour  won't  take  offence — 

Mr.  H.  The  old  story,  I  suppose — wages  ? 

1st  Footman.  That's  not  it,  your  honour. 

2d  Footman.  You  speak. 

1st  Footman.  But  if  your  honour  would  just  be  pleased 
to— 

2d  Footman.  Only  be  pleased  to — 

Mr.  H.  Be  quick  with  what  you  have  to  say,  for  I  am  in 
haste. 

1st  Footman.  Just  to — 

2d  Footman.  Let  us  know  who  it.  is — 

1st  Footman.  Who  it  is  we  have  the  honour  to  serve. 

Mr.  H.   Why  me,  me,  me ;  you  serve  me. 

2d  Footman.  Yes,  sir;  but  we  do  not  know  who  yoti  are. 

Mr.  H.  Childish  curiosity  !  do  not  you  serve  a  rich  master, 
a  gay  master,  an  indulgent  master  ? 

1st  Footman.  Ah,  sir  !  the  figure  you  make  is  to  us,  your 
poor  servants,  the  principal  mortification. 

2d  Footman.  When  we  get  over  a  pot  at  the  public-house, 
or  in  a  gentleman's  kitchen,  or  elsewhere,  as  poor  servants 
must  have  their  pleasures — when  the  question  goes  round, 
who  is  your  master  1  and  who  do  you  serve  ?  and  one  says,  I 
serve  Lord  So-and-so,  and  another,  I  am  Squire  Such-a-one's 
footman — 

1st  Footman.  We  have  nothing  to  say  for  it,  but  that  we 
serve  Mr.  H. 

2d  Foofman.  Or  Squire  H. 

Mr.  H.  Really,  you  are  a  couple  of  pretty  modest,  reason- 
able personages  ;  but  I  hope  you  will  take  it  as  no  offence, 
gentlemen,  if,  upon  a  dispassionate  review  of  all  that  you  have 
said,  I  think  fit  not  to  tell  you  any  more  of  my  name  than 
I  have  chosen  for  especial  purposes  to  communicate  to  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

1st  Footman.  Why,  then,  sir,  you  may  suit  yourself. 


MR.  H ,    A    FARCE.  465 

2d  Footman.  We  tell  you  plainly,  we  cannot  stay. 

1st  Footman.   We  don't  choose  to  serve  Mr.  H. 

2d  Footman.  Nor  any  Mr.  or  Squire  in  the  alphabet — 

\gt  Footman.    That  lives  in  Christ-cross  Row. 

Mr.  II.  Ho,  for  a  couple  of  ungrateful,  inquisitive,  sense- 
less rascals  !  (Jo  hang,  starve,  or  drown  !  Rogues,  to  speak 
thus  irreverently  of  the  alphabet — I  shall  live  to  see  you  glad  to 
serve  old  Q — to  curl  the  wig  of  great  S — adjust  the  dot  of  little 
i — stand  behind  the  chair  of  X,  Y,  Z — wear  the  livery  of 
Etcactera — and  ride  behind  the  sulky  of  And-by-itself-and  ! 

[Exit  in  a  rage. 


KND    OF    THE    FIRST    ACT. 

US 


466  MR.    H — .    A    FARCE. 


ACT  II. 

Scene. — A  handsome  apartment  well  lighted,  Tea,  Cards, 
Sfc. — A  large  party  of  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  among  them 
Melesinda. 

1st  Lady.  I  wonder  when  the  charming  man  will  be  here. 

2d  Lady.  He  is  a  delightful  creature  !     Such  a  polish — 

3d  Lady.   Such  an  air  in  all  that  he  does  or  says — 

4th  Lady.   Yet  gifted  with  a  strong  understanding — 

5th  Lady.  But  has  your  ladyship  the  remotest  idea  of  what 
his  true  name  is  1 

1st  Lady.  They  say  his  very  servants  do  not  know  it.  His 
French  valet,  that  has  lived  with  him  these  two  years — 

2d  Lady.  There,  madam,  I  must  beg  leave  to  set  you  right: 
my  coachman — 

1st  Lady.  I  have  it  from  the  very  best  authority  :  my  foot- 
man— 

2d  Lady.  Then,  madam,  you  have  set  your  servants  on — 

1st  Lady.  No,  madam,  I  would  scorn  any  such  little  mean 
ways  of  coming  at  a  secret.  For  my  part,  I  don't  think  any 
secret  of  that  consequence. 

2d  Lady.  That's  just  like  me  ;  I  make  a  rule  of  troubling 
my  head  with  nobody's  business  but  my  own. 

Melesinda.  But,  then,  she  takes  care  to  make  everybody's 
business  her  own,  and  so  to  justify  herself  that  way — (Aside.) 

\st  Lady.  My  dear  Melesinda,  you  look  thoughtful. 

Melesinda.  Nothing. 

2d  Lady.  Give  it  a  name. 

Melesinda.  Perhaps  it  is  nameless. 

1st  Lady.  As  the  object — come,  never  blush,  nor  deny  it, 
child.  Bless  me,  what  great  ugly  thing  is  that  that  dangles 
at  your  bosom  ? 

Melesinda.  This  ?  it  is  a  cross  :  how  do  you  like  it  ? 

2d  Lady.  A  cross  !  Well,  to  me  it  looks  for  all  the  world 
like  a  great  staring  H. 

(Here  a.  general  laugh.) 

Melesinda.  Malicious  creatures  !  Believe  me  it  is  a  cross, 
and  nothing  but  a  cross. 

1st  Lady.  A  cross,  I  believe,  you  would  willingly  hang  at. 

Melesinda.  Intolerable  spite ! 

(Mr.  H.  is  announced.) 


MR.    H ,    A    FARCE.  467 

Enter  Mr.  H. 

1st  Lady.  Oh,  Mr.  II.,  we  are  so  glad — 

2d  Lady.  We  have  been  so  dull — 

3d  Lady.  So  perfectly  lifeless.  You  owe  it  to  us,  to  be 
more  than  commonly  entertaining. 

Mr.  If.   Ladies,  this  is  so  obliging — 

AtU  Lady.  Oh,  Mr.  H.,  those  ranunculus  you  said  were 
dying,  pretty  things,  they  have  got  up  — 

5th  Lady.  I  have  worked  that  sprig  you  commended — I 
want  you  to  come — 

Mr.  H.  Ladies — 

6lh  Lady.  I  have  sent  for  that  piece  of  music  from  London. 

Mr.  H.  The  Mozart — {seeing  Melesinda) — Melesinda  ! 

Several  Ladies  at  once.  Nay,  positively,  Melesinda,  you 
shan't  engross  him  all  to  yourself. 

(While  the  Ladies  arc  prrssing  about.  Mr.  H.,  the 
Gentlemen  show  signs  of  displeasure.) 

1st  Gent.  We  shan't  be  able  to  edge  in  a  word,  now  this 
coxcomb  is  come. 

2d  Gent.  Damn  him,  I  will  affront  him. 

1st  Gent.  Sir,  with  your  leave,  I  have  a  word  to  say  to  one 
of  these  ladies. 

2d  Gent.  If  we  could  be  heard — 

(The  Ladies  pay  no  attention  but  to  Mr.  H.) 

Mr.  II.  You  see,  gentlemen,  how  the  matter  stands. 
(Hums  an  air.)  I  am  not  my  own  master  :  positively,  I  exist 
and  breathe  but  to  be  agreeable  to  these — Did  you  speak? 

\st.  Gent.  And  affects  absence  of  mind,  puppy  ! 

Mr.  II.  Who  spoke  of  absence  of  mind  ;  did  you,  madam  \ 
How  do  you  do,  Lady  Wearwell — how  do?  I  did  not  see 
your  ladyship  before — what  was  I  about  to  say — oh — absence 
of  mind.  I  am  the  most  unhappy  dog  in  that  way,  sometimes 
spurt  out  the  strangest  things — the  most  mal-a-propos — with- 
out meaning  to  give  the  least  offence,  upon  my  honour — sheer 
absence  of  mind — things  I  would  have  given  the  world  not  to 
have  said. 

1st  Gent.  Do  you  hear  the  coxcomb  ? 

1st  Lady.   Great  wits,  they  say — 

2d  Lady.  You  fine  geniuses  are  most  given — 

3d  Lady.  Men  of  bright  parts  are  commonly  too  vivacious — 

Mr.  H.  But  you  shall  hear.  I  was  to  dine  the  other  day 
at  a  great  nabob's,  that  must  be  nameless,  who,  between  our- 
selves, is  strongly  suspected  of — being  very  rich,  that's  all. 
John,  my  valet,  who  knows  my  foible,  cautioned  me,  while 
he  was  dressing  me,  as  he  usually  dooa  where  he  thinks  there's 


468 


MB.    H- 


A    FARCE. 


a  danger  of  my  committing  a  lapsus,  to  take  care  in  my  con- 
versation how  I  made  any  allusion  direct  or  indirect  to  presents 
— vou  understand  me  ?  I  set  out  double  charged  with  my  fel- 
low's consideration  and  my  own;  and,  to  do  myself  justice, 
behaved  with  tolerable  circumspection  for  the  lirst  half  hour 
or  so — till  at  last  a  gentleman  in  company,  who  was  indulg- 
ing a  free  vein  of  raillery  at  the  expense  of  the  ladies,  stum- 
bled upon  that  expression  of  the  poet  which  calls  them  "  fair 
defects." 

)st  Lady.  It,  is  Pope,  I  believe,  who  says  it. 
Mr.  H.  No,  madam;  Milton.  AYhere  was  I  ?  Oh,  "  fair 
defects."  This  gave  occasion  to  a  crilic  in  company  to  de- 
liver his  opinion  on  the  phrase — that  led  to  an  enumeration  of 
all  the  various  words  which  might  have  been  used  instead  of 
"  defects,"  as  want,  absence,  poverty,  deficiency,  lack.  This 
moment  I,  (who  had  not  been  attending  to  the  progress  of  the 
argument,  as  the  denouement  will  show,)  starting  suddenly  up 
out  of  one  of  my  reveries,  by  some  unfortunate  connexion  of 
ideas,  which  the  last  fatal  word  had  excited,  the  devil  put  it 
into  my  head  to  turn  round  to  the  nabob,  who  was  sitting  next 
me,  and  in  a  very  marked  manner  (as  it  seemed  to  the  com- 
pany) to  put  the  question  to  him,  "  Pray,  sir,  what  may  be  the 
exact  value  of  a  lack  of  rupees  ?"  You  may  guess  the  con- 
fusion which  followed. 

1st  Lady.   What  a  distressing  circumstance  ! 
2d  Lady.  To  a  delicate  mind — 
3d  Ltidy.   How  embarrassing — 
4th  Latty.   I  declare,  I  quite  pity  you. 
1st  Gent.  Puppy ! 

Mr.  H.  A  baronet  at  the  table,  seeing  my  dilemma,  jogged 
my  elbow;  and  a  good-natured  duchess,  who  does  everything 
with  a  grace  peculiar  to  herself,  trod  on  my  toes  at  that  in- 
stant:  this  brought  me  to  myself,  and — covered  with  blushes, 
and  pitied  by  all  the  ladies  —  I  withdrew. 

1*/  Lady.   How  charmingly  he  tells  a  story. 
2d  Lady.   But  how  distressing! 

Mr  H.  Lord  Squandercounsel,  who  is  my  particular  friend, 
was  pleased  to  rally  me  in  his  inimitable  way  upon  it  next 
day.  I  shall  never  forget  a  sensible  thing  he  said  on  the  oc- 
casion— speaking  of  absence  of  mind,  my  foible — says  he, 
My  dear  Hogs — 

Several  Ladies.   Hogs — what — ha — 

Mr.  II  My  dear  lIo<rsfiesh — my  name — [here  a  universal 
scream) — oh,  my  cursed  unfortunate  tongue  !  II.,  I  mean — 
where  was  I  ? 

1st  Lady*  Filthy — abominable  1 


MR.    H ,    A    FARCE.  469 

2d  Lady.  Unutterable  ! 
3d  Lady.  Hogs — foh  ! 
4th  Lady.  Disgusting  ! 
5th  Lady.   Vile  ! 
(it/i  Lady.   Shocking  ! 
\st  Lady.  Odious  ! 
2d  Lad i/.   Hogs — pah  ! 

3d  Lady.  A  smelling-bottle — look  to  Miss  Melesinda.  Pool 
thing  !  it  is  no  wonder.  You  had  better  keep  off  from  her, 
Mr.  Hogsflesh,  and  not  be  pressing  about  her  in  her  circum- 
stances. 

1st  Gent.  Good  time  of  day  to  you,  Mr.  Hogsflesh. 
2d  Gent.  The  compliments  of  the  season  to  you,  Mr.  Hogs- 
flesh. 

Mr.  II  This  is  too  much — flesh  and  blood  cannot  endure 
it. 

1st  Gent.  What  flesh  ?— hog's-flesh  ? 
2d  Gent.  How  he  sets  up  his  bristles  ? 
Mr.  II.  Bristles! 

Is/.  Gent.  He  looks  as  fierce  as  a  hog  in  armour. 
Mr.  II.  A  hog  ! — Madam  ! — [here  he  severally  accosts  the 
ladies,  who  by  turns  repel  him.) 

1st  Lady.  Extremely  obliged  to  you  for  your  attentions  ; 
but  don't  want  a  partner. 

2d  Lady.  Greatly  flattered  by  your  preference  ;  but  believe 
I  shall  remain  single. 

3d  Lady.  Shall  always  acknowledge  your  politeness  ;  but 
have  no  thoughts  of  altering  my  condition. 

4th  Lady.  Always  be  happy  to  respect  you  as  a  friend ; 
but  you  must  not  look  for  anything  further. 

5th  Lady.  No  doubt  of  your  ability  to  make  any  woman 
happv  :  but  have  no  thoughts  of  changing  my  name. 

6th  Lady.  Must  tell  you,  sir,  that  if  by  your  insinuations 
you  think  to  prevail  with  me,  you  have,  got  the  wrong  sow  by 
the  ear.     Does  he  think  any  lady  would  go  to  pig  with  him. 

Old  Lady.  Must  beg  you  to  be  less  particular  in  your  ad- 
dresses to  me.  Does  he  take  me  for  a  Jew,  to  long  after  for- 
bidden meats. 

Mr.  H.  I  shall  go  mad  !  to  be  refused  by  old  Mother 
Damnable — she  that's  so  old,  nobody  knows  whether  she  was 
ever  married  or  no,  but  passes  for  a  maid  by  courtesy  :  her 
juvenile  exploits  being  beyond  the  farthest  stretch  of  tradition  I 
— old  Mother  Damnable  ! 

[Exeunt  all,  either  pitying  or  seeming  to  acoid  him. 
40 


470  MR.    H ,  A    FARCE. 

Scene. —  The  Street. 
Belvil  and  another  Gentleman. 

Belvil.  Poor  Jack,  I  am  really  sorry  for  him.  The  account 
which  you  give  me  of  his  mortifying  change  of  reception  at 
the  assembly  would  be  highly  diverting,  if  it  gave  me  less 
pain  to  hear  it.  With  all  his  amusing  absurdities,  and  among 
them  not  the  least,  a  predominant  desire  to  be  thought  well  of 
by  the  fair  sex,  he  has  an  abundant  share  of  good-nature,  and 
is  a  man  of  honour.  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  happened, 
Melesinda  may  do  worse  than  take  him  yet.  But  did  the 
women  resent  it  so  deeply  as  you  say? 

Gent.  Oh,  intolerably — they  fled  him  as  fearfully  when 
'twas  once  blown,  as  a  man  would  be  avoided  who  was  sud- 
denly discovered  to  have  marks  of  the  plague,  and  as  fast ; 
when  before  they  had  been  ready  to  devour  the  foolishest 
thing  he  could  say. 

Belvil.  Ha  ! — ha  !  so  frail  is  the  tenure  by  which  these 
women's  favourites  commonly  hold  their  envied  pre-emineuce. 
Well,  I  must  go  find  him  out  and  comfort  him.  I  suppose  I 
shall  find  him  at  the  inn. 

Gent.  Either  there  or  at  Melesinda's.     Adieu. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene. — Mr.  H 's  Apartment. 

Mr.  II.  (solus.)  Was  ever  anything  so  mortifying  ?  to  be 
refused  by  old  Mother  Damnable ! — with  such  parts  and  ad- 
dress, and  the  little  squeamish  devils,  to  dislike  me  for  a  name, 
a  sound — oh,  my  cursed  name  !  that  it  was  something  I  could 
be  revenged  on  !  if  it  were  alive,  that  I  might  tread  upon  it, 
or  crush  it,  or  pummel  it,  or  kick  it,  or  spit  it  out — for  it 
sticks  in  my  throat  and  will  choke  me. 

My  plaguy  ancestors  !  if  they  had  left  me  but  a  Van  or  a 
Mac,  or  an  Irish  0\  it  had  been  something  to  qualify  it — Myn- 
heer Van  Hogsflesh,  or  Sawney  Mac  Hogsflesh,  or  Sir  Phe- 

lim  O'Hogaflesh,  but  downright  blunt .      If  it  had  been 

any  other  name  in  the  world,  I  could  have  borne  it.  If  it.  had 
been  the  name  of  a  beast,  as  Bull,  Fox,  Kid,  Lamb,  Wolf, 
Lion  ;  or  of  a  bird,  as  Sparrow,  Hawk,  Buzzard,  Daw,  Finch, 
.Nightingale  ;  or  of  a  fish,  as  Sprat,  Herring,  Salmon  ;  or  the 
name  of  a  thing,  as  Ginger,  Hay,  Wood;  or  of  a  colour,  as 
Black,  Gray,  White,  Green  ;  or  of  a  sound,  as  Bray  ;  or  the 
name  of  a  month,  as  March,  May  ;  or  of  a  place,  as  Barnet, 
Baldock,  Hitchen  ;  or  the  name  of  a  coin,  as  Farthing,  Penny, 
Twopenny  ;  or  of  a  profession,  as  Butcher,  Baker,  Carpenter, 


MR.    II ,    A    FARCE.  471 

Piper,  Fisher,  Fletcher,  Fowler,  Glover  ;  or  a  Jew's  name, 
as  Solomons,  Isaacs,  Jacobs  ;  or  a  personal  name,  as  Foot, 
Leg,  Crookshanks,  Heaviside,  Sidebottom,  Longbottom,  Rams- 
bottom,  Winterbottom  ;  or  a  long  name,  as  Blanche nhagen,  or 
Blancheiihausen  ;  or  a  short  name,  as  Crib,  Crisp,  Crips,  Tag, 
Trot,  I  nb,  Phips,  Padge,  Papps,  or  Prig,  or  \\  ig,  or  Pip,  or 
Trip;  Trip  had  been  something,  bat  Ho — .  (  Walks  about 
in  great  agitation — recovering  his  calmness  a  little,  sits  down.) 
Farewell  die  must  distant  thoughts  of  marriage  ;  the  ringer- 
circling  ring,  the  purity-figuring  glove,  the  envy-pining  bride- 
maids,  the  wishing  parson,  and  tbe  simpering  clerk.  Fare- 
well, the  ambiguous  blush-raising  joke,  the  titter-provoking 
pun,  the  morning  stirring-drum.  No  son  of  mine  shall  exist, 
to  bear  my  ill-fated  name.  No  nurse  come  chuckling  to  tell 
me  it  is  a  boy.  No  midwife,  leering  at  me  from  under  the 
lids  of  professional  gravity.  I  dreamed  of  caudle — [sings  in 
a  melancholy  tone.)  Lullaby,  lullaby — hush-a-by-baby — how 
like  its  papa  it  is  ! — (makes  motions  as  if  he  was  nursing.) 
And  then,  when  grown  up,  "Is  this  your  son,  sir?"  "Yes, 
sir,  a  poor  copy  of  me,  a  sad  young  dog— just  what  his  father 
was  at  his  age — I  have  four  at  home."     Oh  !  oh  !  oh  ! 

Enter  Landlord. 

Mr.  II.  Landlord,  I  must  pack  up  to-night ;  you  will  see 
all  mv  things  got  ready. 

Landlord.  Hope  your  honour  does  not  intend  to  quit  the 
Blue  Boar — sorry  anything  has  happened. 

Mr.  H.   He  has  heard  it  all. 

Landlord.  Your  honour  has  had  some  mortification,  to  be 
sure,  as  a  man  may  say  ;  you  have  brought  your  pigs  to  a  fine 
market. 

Mr.  II.   Pigs  ! 

Landlord.  What  then?  take  old  Pr\  's  advice,  and  never 
mind  it.      Don't  scorch  your  crackling  for  'em,  sir. 

Mr.  II.  Scorch  my  crackling!  a  queer  phrase  ;  but  I  sup- 
pose he  don't  mean  to  affront  me. 

Landlord.  What  is  done  can't  be  undone  ;  you  can't  make 
a  silken  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear. 

Mr.  II.  As  you  say,  landlord,  thinking  of  a  thing  does  but 
augment  it. 

Landlord.   Does  but  hogment  it,  indeed,  sir. 

Mr.  II    Hogment  it  !   damn  it.  I  said  augment  it. 

Landlord.  Lord,  sir,  'tis  not  everybody  has  such  gift  of 
fine  phrases  as  your  honour,  that  can  lard  his  discourse. 

Mr.  H.  Lard ! 


472  MR.   H ,    A    FARCE. 

Landlord.  Suppose  they  do  smoke  you — 

Mr.  H.  Smoke  me  ? 

Landlord.  One  of  my  phrases  ;  never  mind  my  words,  sir, 
my  meaning  is  good.  We  all  mean  the  same  thing,  only  you 
express  yourself  one  way,  and  I  another,  that's  all.  The 
meaning's  the  same  ;  it  is  all  pork. 

Mr.  II  That's  another  of  your  phrases,  I  presume?  (Bell 
rings,  and  the  landlord  called  for.) 

Landlord.  Anon!  anon. 

Mr.  H.  Oh,  I  wish  i  were  anonymous. 

[Exeunt  several  ways. 

Scene. — Melesinda'' s  Apartment. 

Melesinda  and  Maid. 

Maid.  Lord,  madam  !  before  I'd  take  on  as  you  do  about  a 
foolish — what  signifies  a  name?  Hogs — Hogs — what  is  it  ? — 
is  just  as  good  as  any  other  for  what  I  see. 

Melesinda.  Ignorant  creature  !  yet  she  is  perhaps  blessed  in 
the  absence  of  those  ideas  which,  while  they  add  a  zest  to  the 
few  pleasures  which  fall  to  the  lot  of  superior  natures  to  en- 
joy, doubly  edge  the — 

Maid.  Superior  natures  !  a  fig  !  If  he's  hog  by  name  he's 
not  hog  by  nature,  that  don't  follow — his  name  don't  make 
him  anything,  does  it  ?  He  don't  grunt  the  more  for  it,  nor 
squeak,  that  ever  I  hear  ;  he  likes  his  victuals  out  of  a  plate, 
as  other  Christians  do,  you  never  see  him  go  to  the  trough — 

Melesinda.  Unfeeling  wretch  !  yet  possibly  her  intentions — 

Maid.  For  instance,  madam,  my  name  is  Finch — Hetty 
Finch.  I  don't  whistle  the  more  for  that,  nor  long  after  ca- 
nary-seed while  I  can  get  good  wholesome  mutton— no,  nor 
you  can't  catch  me  by  throwing  salt  on  my  tail.  If  you  come 
to  that,  hadn't  I  a  young  man  used  to  come  after  me,  they  said 
courted  me — his  name  was  Lion — Francis  Lion,  a  tailor;  but 
though  he  was  fond  enough  of  me,  for  all  that,  he  never  of- 
fered to  eat  me. 

Meleundtt.  How  fortunate  that  the  discovery  has  been 
made  before  it  was  too  late.  Had  I  listened  to  his  deceits, 
and,  as  the  perfidious  man  had  almost  persuaded  me,  precip- 
itated myself  into  an  inextricable  engagement  before — 

Maid.  No  great  harm  if  you  had.  You'd  only  have  bought 
a  pig  in  a  poke — and  what  then  ?  Oh,  here  he  comes  creep- 
ing— 

Enter  Ma.  H.  abject. 
Go  to  her,  Mr.  Hogs — Hogs — Hogsbristles  —  what's  your 


MR.    H ,    A    FARCE.  473 

name?  Don't  be  afraid,  man — don't  eive  it  up — she's  not  crying 
— only  summut  has  made  her  eyes  red — she  has  got  a  sty  in 
her  eye,  I  believe — {going.) 

Melesinda.   You  are  not  going,  Betty  ? 

Maid.  Oh,  madam,  never  mind  me — 1  shall  be  back  in  the 
twinkling  of  a  pig's  whisker,  as  they  say.  [Exit. 

Mr.  II.  Melesinda,  you  behold  before  you  a  wretch  who 
would  have  betrayed  your  confidence,  but  it  was  love  that 
prompted  him  ;  who  would  have  tricked  you  by  an  unworthy 
concealment  into  a  participation  of  that  disgrace  which  a  su- 
perficial world  has  agreed  to  attach  to  a  name — but  with  it  you 
would  have  shared  a  fortune  not  contemptible,  and  a  heart — 
but  'tis  over  now.  That  name  he  is  content  to  bear  alone — 
to  go  where  the  persecuted  syllables  shall  be  no  more  heard, 
or  excite  no  meaning — some  spot  where  his  native  tongue  has 
never  penetrated,  nor  any  of  his  countrymen  have  landed,  to 
plant  their  unfeeling  satire,  their  brutal  wit,  and  national  ill 
manners  —  where  no  Englishman — {Here  Melesinda,  who  has 
been  pouting  during  this  speech,  fetches  a  deep  sigh).  Some 
yet  undiscovered  Otaheite,  where  witless,  unapprehensive  sav- 
ages shall  innocently  pronounce  the  ill-fated  sounds,  and  think 
them  not  inharmonious. 

31clesinda.  Oh  ! 

Mr.  H.  Who  knows  but  among  the  female  natives  might  be 
found — 

Melesinda.  Sir!   {raising  her  head.) 

Mr.  H.  One  who  would  be  more  kind  than — some  Oberea 
— Queen  Oberea. 

Melesinda.  Oh! 

Mr.  H.  Or  what  if  I  were  to  seek  for  proofs  of  recipro- 
cal esteem  among  unprejudiced  African  maids,  in  Monomo- 
topa. 

Enter  Servant. 
Servant.  Mr.  Belvil.  [Exit. 

Enter  Belvil. 

Mr.  II.   Monomotopa  {musing.) 

BefoiL  Heydav,  Jack!  what  means  this  mortified  face? 
nothing  has  happened,  I  hope,  between  this  lady  and  you.  I 
beg  pardon,  madam ;  but  understanding  my  friend  was  with  you, 
I  took  the  liberty  of  seeking  him  here.  Some  little  difference 
possibly  which  a  third  person  can  adjust — not  a  word — will 
you,  madam,  as  this  gentleman's  friend,  suffer  rac  to  be  the 
40* 


474  MR.    II ,    A    FARCE. 

arbitrator — strange — hark'ee,  Jack,  nothing  lias  come  out,  has 
there?  you  understand  me.  Oh,  I  guess  how  it  is — somebody 
has  got  at  your  secret ;  you  haven't  blabbed  it  yourself,  have 
you?  ha — ha — ha!  I  could  find  in  my  heart — Jack,  what 
would  you  give  me  if  I  should  relieve  you. 

Mr.  H.  No  power  of  man  can  relieve  me  [sighs) — but  it 
must  lie  at  the  root,  gnawing  at  the  root — here  it  will  lie. 

Belvil.  No  power  of  man  ?  not  a  common  man,  I  grant  you  ; 
for  instance,  a  subject — it's  out  of  the  power  pf  any  subject. 

Mr.  H.   Gnawing  at  the  root — there  it  will  lie. 

Belvil.  Such  a  thing  has  been  known  as  a  name  to  be 
changed  ;  but  not  by  a  subject — {shows  a  Gazette.) 

Mr.  II.  Gnawing  at  the  root  (suddenly  snatches  the  paper 
out  of  BelvWs  hand) — ha  !  pish  !  nonsense  !  give  it  me — what ! 
(reads)  promotions,  bankrupts — a  great  many  bankrupts  this 
week — there  it  will  lie  {lays  it  dotcn,  takes  it  up  again,  and 
reads) — "  The  king  has  been  graciously  pleased" — gnawing  at 
the  root — "  graciously  pleased  to  grant  unto  John  Hogsflesh" — 
the  devil — "  Hogsflesh,  Esq.,  of  Sty  Hall,  in  the  county  of 
Hants,  his  royal  license  and  authority" — oh  Lord  !  oh  Lord — 
"  that  he  and  his  issue" — me  and  my  issue — "  may  take  and  use 
the  surname  and  arms  of  Bacon" — Bacon,  the  surname  and  arms 
of  Bacon — "  in  pursuance  of  an  injunction  contained  in  the  last 
will  and  testament  of  Nicholas  Bacon,  Esq.,  his  late  uncle,  as 
well  as  out  of  grateful  respect  to  his  memory" — grateful  re- 
spect !  poor  old  soul — here's  more — "  and  that  such  arms  may 
be  first  duly  exemplified" — they  shall,  I  will  take  care  of  that 
— "  according  to  the  laws  of  arms,  and  recorded  in  the  Her- 
ald's Office."" 

Belvil.  Come,  madam,  give  me  leave  to  put  my  own  inter- 
pretation upon  your  silence,  and  to  plead  for  my  friend,  that 
now  that  oidy  obstacle  which  seemed  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
your  union  is  removed,  you  will  suffer  me  to  complete  the 
happiness  which  my  news  seems  to  have  brought  him,  by  in- 
troducing him  with  a  new  claim  to  your  favour,  by  the  name 
of  Mr.  Bacon.  {Takes  their  hands  and  joins  them,  which 
Melesinda  seems  to  give  consent  to  with  a  smile.) 

Mr.  It.  Generous  Melesinda  !  my  dear  friend — "  he  and  his 
issue,"  me  and  my  issue — oh  Lord  ! 

Belvil.  I  wish  you  joy,  Jack,  with  all  my  heart. 
Mr.  It.  Bacon,  Bacon,  Bacon — how  odd  it  sounds.  I  could 
never  be  tired  of  hearing  it.  There  was  Lord  Chancellor 
Bacon.  Methinks  I  have  some  of  the  Verulam  blood  in  me 
already — methinks  I  could  look  through  nature — there  was 
Friar  Bacon,  a  conjurer — I  feel  as  if  I  could  conjure  too — 


MR.    II ,    A    FARCE.  475 

Enter  a  Servant. 

Servant.  Two  young  ladies  and  an  old  lady  are  at  the  door, 
inquiring  if  you  see  company,  madam. 

Mr-  //.  "  Surname  and  arms" — 

Mclesinda.  .Show  them  up.  Rfy  dear  Mr.  Bacon,  moderate 
your  joy. 

Enter  three  Ladies,  being  part  of  those  who  were  at  the 
Assembly. 

1st  Lady.  My  dear  Mclesinda,  how  do  you  do? 

2d  Lady.  How  do  you  do?  We  have  been  so  concerned 
for  you — 

Old  Lady.  We  have  been  so  concerned — (seeing  him) — Mr. 
IL'Ljsflesh — 

Mr.  If.  There's  no  such  person  —  nor  there  never  was — nor 
'tis  not  lit  there  should  be — "surname  and  arms" — 

Belvil.  It  is  true  what  my  friend  would  express  ;  we  have 
been  all  in  a  mistake,  ladies.  Very  true,  the  name  of  this 
gentleman  was  what  you  call  it,  but  it  is  so  no  longer.  The 
succession  to  the  Ions-contested  Bacon  estate  is  at  length  de- 
cided, and  with  it  my  friend  succeeds  to  the  name  of  his  de- 
ceased relative. 

Mr.  II.   "  His  majesty  has  been  graciously  pleased'' — 

1st  Lady.  I  am  sure  we  all  join  in  hearty  congratulation — 
(sighs). 

2d  Lady.  And  wish  vou  joy  with  all  our  hearts — (heigh- 
ho  !) 

Old  Lady.  And  hope  you  will  enjoy  the  name  and  estate 
many  years — (cries.) 

Belvil.  Ha — ha — ha  !  mortify  them  a  little,  Jack. 

1st  Lady.   Hope  you  intend  to  stay — 

2d  Lady.  With  us  some  time — 

Old  Ludu.   It)  these  parts — 

Mr.  H.  Ladies,  for  your  congratulations  I  thank  you;  for 
the  favours  you  have  lavished  on  me,  and  in  particular  for  this 
lady's  [turning  to  the  old.  lady)  good  opinion,  I  rest  your  debt- 
or. As  to  any  future  favours — (accosts  them  severally  in  the 
order  in  which  he  teas  refused  by  them  at  the  assembly)  —  mad- 
am, shall  always  acknowledge  yourpoliteness  :  but  at  present, 
you  see,  I  am  engaged  with  a  partner.  Always  be  happy  to 
respect  you  as  a  friend,  but  you  must  not  look  for  anything 
further.  Must  beg  of  you  to  be  less  particular  in  your  ad- 
dresses to  me.  Ladies  all,  with  this  piece  of  advice,  of  Bath 
and  you 


473  MR.    H ,    A    FARCK. 

Your  ever  grateful  servant  takes  his  leave. 
Lay  your  plans  surer  when  you  plot  to  grieve  ; 
See  while  you  kindly  mean  to  mortify 
Another,  the  wild  arrow  do  not  fly, 
And  gall  yourself.     For  once  you've  been  mistaken  ; 
Your  shafts  have  missed  their  aim — Hogsflesh  has  saved 
his  Bacon. 


THE    END. 


60 

A?. 


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